Let's Live Life
by signelchan
Summary: Join a ragtag bunch of friends who live in an apartment building (plus some others) as they experience life as only the arguable middle class could. Currently back to following the couple by the names of Tavros and Vriska, as they mess up in different parts of their lives.
1. Act I Part I: Let's Play

_Act I Part I_

**Let's Play Pokemon**

On the list of good mornings, this one had to be one of the better ones. After all, it wasn't every morning that Tavros woke up to the sound of a Pokémon game being played right next to him. Even then, it was normally his own game that he had left on overnight that he woke up to, not someone actively playing it. So when he heard battle music and actual attacks going on, his eyes shot open and he sat up, turning his head to see Vriska there, Game Boy in hand, mumbling things under her breath about how she was going to beat that Bellsprout so hard, it wouldn't know what hit it.

"Bet you didn't expect me to ever play this old copy of Silver, did you?" she asked, noticing that Tavros was awake. "I've been conquering all these stupid weak guys with my Cynd-whatever that I named Bitchface, with an eight instead of the B. It's pretty awesome." She laughed, before putting the game back close to her face and muttering things again.

"Have you even accomplished anything in it yet?" Tavros moved back a bit and leaned up against her, so he could see the screen. "Gotten any badges, found any rivals, that kind of stuff?"

She snorted. "Found the rival? Who's the rival? The dude with the question marks for his name? I named him after you, because I wasn't feeling creative. My dude's name is Vriska. Pretty sweet, huh?" Her focus went back to the game for a second, before she screamed. "I just caught some sheep thing! I'm gonna name it Bitchlord!"

He was rather amused at her enthusiasm, and asked her if she'd be using an eight instead of the B for the name of every other Pokémon she caught, at which she laughed and said she wouldn't do anything but. This was a great moment, seeing her play so happily a game that he loved so much, but he couldn't spend all day in bed like she could. He didn't like the feeling of not moving—he simply had experienced that too many times already in his life. But Vriska was really sitting there playing Pokémon, and he wanted to enjoy that with her.

So, aside from the couple times where he pulled himself away just long enough to eat or do whatever was on his mind, like look out the window, He always found himself snuggled back up against Vriska, though, just watching her train her "8itchface" and "8itchlord," both of which were way too strong compared to all of their opponents. They were there, him watching and her playing, until she met the inevitable first-attempt death by the Miltank owned by Whitney. "Oh, come on, you bitch! I should have beat you!" Vriska hissed, saving her game and turning it off. "If I had a fucking sweet spider to whip your ass with, I would have won!"

"Actually, Vriska, you could have had a spider. Well, a Spinarak, but it's a spider." Tavros stopped talking for a second, noticing Vriska's rather angry facial expression. "You'd have to be playing Gold though, because it's Gold-exclusive."

"Are you telling me I could have beaten that bitch if I was playing a different game?"

He laughed at her comment. "No, I'm saying you could have had a Spinarak. Which, by the way, would have been rather easily taken care of by Miltank. So you basically would have lost anyway, which is really okay! Everyone loses to Whitney at least once in their life."

"Oh, and let me guess, you're going to tell me that everyone gets called by that Youngster Joey guy and told about how his Rattata is 'in the top percentage' or whatever? Because I like to think I'm pretty damn special, being called like that." The smile she allowed to appear on her face was one of pride and happiness; Tavros felt terrible for knowing he was about to destroy it.

"Yeah, actually, he calls everyone who gives him their number. Sorry, Vriska," he said, seeing the anger coming back to her face, "but that's just the way it is."

She put the game on her nightstand and got up, pulling the bottom of her lacy white gown down a bit to cover herself. "I hate that game. Remind me never to play it again."

"No one just walks away from Pokémon like that, Vriska! Believe me. You'll be back playing it again by the end of the night." He got up too, and as she left the bedroom he followed, his pace slower than hers due to the metal braces on his legs. "Okay, make your whole 'I walked away from it' comment now. I dare you."

"Nope, not going to even talk about it." She locked herself in the bathroom then, and he could hear her screaming about Whitney and the Miltank. He took that opportunity to go back into their room and get the game, sit down on their couch, and start playing it himself, not to get her past where she was stuck but to judge her team. He wasn't surprised, even in the slightest, to see that they had horrible stats, thanks to the only two Pokémon she even had, 8itchface and 8itchlord, both being female. She hadn't even evolved either of them, and they were both ready for it. But was he going to tell her about that? Nope. She didn't seem to like the evolution animation, so she kept ending it, and he was going to let her keep ending it.

Nearly an hour later, she came out of the bathroom, her knuckles a bit bloody from beating on the walls. "Give me that," she hissed, yanking the game from his hands. "I'm gonna beat that bitch and she's going to learn that you don't fuck with me."

"Dude, chill out. It's just a game." Tavros thought it was funny that he was the one saying that; after all, it was normally Vriska that was breaking him from his rage at his own Pokémon games. "I swear, Vriska, you're more into that thing than I ever was..."

"Don't talk to me, Tavros. I'm playing Pokémon now." That was the last thing Vriska even said to him until almost an hour later, when she remarked that she was hungry, but she solved her own problem easily and went back to her concentrated silence. When her stomach started growling hours later, she didn't even bother with appeasing it, just focusing only on her game.

He sighed after its rumbling reached his ears for the second time without her doing anything. "Okay, I'm ordering a pizza," he said, looking over at her. "What do you want on it?"

"The tears of children and the blood of my enemies," Vriska replied without batting an eyelash in his direction. "I'm trying to find some bitch who decided it's okay to not be in the place she belongs. She's going to get a piece of my mind when I get to her."

"Yeah, don't really care. I'm starving, and I need actual toppings for a pizza. Now either tell me what you want or you're getting what I want." She whined a bit, but gave no real answer, so he sighed once more. "Okay. Plain old cheese and pepperoni it is."

Leaving Vriska to play Pokémon in peace, he went to the phone and called the local pizza company, before finding himself back on the couch, listening to Vriska's whines and grumbles, all about how stupid the sidequest she was on really was. "I mean, what kind of bitch leaves her station for a sick Pokémon? That's just dumb," she said, shaking the Game Boy a little. "And I want to ring her neck for making me go up this stupid tower. I hate it."

"I think you're really forgetting that it's just a game. She's just pixels. There's nothing she's making you do. You're making yourself do it." Tavros would have continued with his, sadly, true comments, but the doorbell rang then, and he had to get up to greet whoever was there. It had easily been half an hour by then, so the pizza guy was late and he could complain if he wanted to. He was rather surprised when he opened the door and there was a pizza...being delivered by a blonde guy with a baby strapped to his chest. "Dave? Did they deliver it to the wrong apartment again?"

The guy nodded. "Thanks for paying beforehand, or else I'd be pissed." He shoved the pizza into Tavros's hands and laughed. "I've already got enough going on tonight. The last thing I needed was to have to pay for a pizza that isn't mine."

"Is that Dave?" Vriska asked, putting the game down and jumping from her seat. "It is! Hey! Come on in!"

"No can do." He pointed at the baby that was strapped to him. "I can't get distracted over here by someone with as short a skirt as you. I'm watching this kid, and that means I've got to be on my best behavior. If that means no teasing you about not even being dressed, then, sadly, so be it."

Vriska's eyes trailed down to the end of her gown, which was up much higher than it should have been around anyone (besides herself and Tavros, that is), and she blushed, pulling it down. "Okay, fine, get back to your kid watching. Anyway, who does that fine specimen of child belong to? It's sure as fuck not yours."

"Great observation, Vriska. Glad you know when someone's a Strider and when they're not." He ran a finger through the baby's dark hair; the kid kicked and giggled. "It's just the neighbor's kid. Him and his lady wanted a nice night out together, so I decided that I could take care of their precious little thing for them, just this once."

"You actually know your neighbors?" Tavros raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "That's really hard to believe. What, did they meet you after you played your music too loud one night or something?"

Dave ruffled the kid's hair some more as he answered. "I consider you guys my neighbors, and you're a floor up. Don't be so literal. I'm talking about John and Jade. They live a couple floors up from here, you know."

"That's theirs? That thing looks normal. You must be lying to us." Vriska sat back down, stuck her tongue out at Dave, and returned to playing her game. "They couldn't make something that cute even if they paid money."

"Sorry she's being such a bitch right now," Tavros said, setting the pizza down on a chair so he could use both hands to hold himself up in the doorway. "She's been playing Pokémon since she woke up, and she's kind of losing her mind..."

"Listen here. One of these nights, you need to ditch her and come chill with me. I can get you some hot chicks pretty easily, and they won't be nearly as bitchy as her." Dave leaned down so Tavros could see his eyes over his sunglasses. "Of course, I guess you are kind of tied to her now, so maybe that's not a good idea. Maybe you should just ignore me."

He knew that ignoring Dave was probably the best thing he could do, so with a quick thanks for bringing the pizza, Tavros closed the door in the blonde's face and took the food over to the couch, where Vriska was once again mumbling about the stupidity of the game. "Food's here, in case you didn't notice."

"I'm not really feeling hungry for food anymore." The game shut off, and Vriska looked at Tavros, giving him a slightly seductive grin. "All this playing games has made me realize how much I love my precious video game nerd, and..." She let out a low growl, stroking under his chin. "...don't you think the food could wait until after I show you my appreciation?"

The temptation was there, but as he heard his own stomach growling, he shook his head. "Sorry, sweetie, but we need to actually eat before we do that."

"Oh," she said, a tone of heartbreak in her voice. "Then let's eat, shall we?" She opened the pizza box, to reveal a pizza that was missing one slice. "Damn it, Dave! Just because the pizza guy's an idiot doesn't mean you get to steal our food!"

Pokémon, pizza, and getting hit on very strongly by his girlfriend. Tavros simply couldn't imagine a better day than that.

* * *

**A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on July 20th, 2012.**

**This is, by far, the fic series I have put the most love and time into, and I don't know why I've waited so long to post it here. Over the next few months, I will slowly be adding each part to this monster, in the format of splitting the different story arcs into "acts" and considering all supplemental materials as "intermissions" unless they fit in otherwise. (There are close to 30 parts to this fic, so if you're interested, it's going to get long.)**

**This is obviously humanstuck. There's a lot of shipping in it. And after the next chapter, things won't be nearly as lighthearted as they are here. :o**


	2. Act I Part II

_Act I Part II_

**Let's Play Dress Up**

Unlike Tavros and his Pokémon games that he considered his closest friends, Vriska had tangible people that she could go to if she wanted to have fun. And while, sure, those games might have been a little interesting, but real people were a lot better than virtual pixels named "8itchface" and "8itchlord" could ever be. Even if they were a lot less loyal and didn't attack when she wanted them to, like her Pokémon would have.

Okay, so maybe she was a bit addicted to playing those games. It wasn't like she had anything else she should be doing when she was at home. The moment she walked in that front door of the apartment, she wanted to get out of her stuffy "visiting people" clothes, flop on the couch with the nearest handheld video game system she could find, and drown out her memories of friends with the sights and sounds of whatever Pokémon game she was playing. It didn't matter what her and her friends had done that day, they required her to be dressed up decently, and she hated being dressed up more than anything. She would much rather have spent the entire day at work than in shoes that squished her feet and made it uncomfortable to stand.

Playing her games, though, didn't happen on work nights. Those she needed to spend sleeping. But nights after a day with friends, and the off days where she didn't have work or plans? Those were her moments of lounging around in her white gown and playing Pokémon. And this particular day she came home, kicked off her heels, and wandered to the bedroom, where she planned on changing into her gown. But it wasn't on her pillow, where she had set it that morning. In fact, it wasn't on the bed at all. It hadn't been put in her dresser (which was not where it belonged, clean or dirty), it wasn't in the closet, and it definitely wasn't on top of the large pile of dirty clothes that belonged to her and Tavros.

It was just gone. And no amount of searching that room was going to make it come back, she knew, but there was no sense in not trying. The third time she searched her dresser, she noticed that her favorite blue bikini was also missing. Maybe he had decided he was going to buy her something new, something blue but styled like her gown? Sometimes Tavros did things like that without warning, and although it bothered her, he didn't exactly have the confidence to ask her if it was okay. He just did it and became embarrassed whenever he revealed his gifts.

Speaking of Tavros, where was he? Vriska hadn't seen him when she came in, and she hadn't yet heard him say anything, and she had been home for twenty minutes by that point. He wasn't home, and that probably meant neither was her stuff. Bummed that she didn't have her gown, she threw on the closest shirt and comfortable pants she could find and went out to the couch, where the Game Boy and her copy of Pokémon Silver was waiting for her.

When she picked up her game, there was a note attached to the screen. Written in Tavros' sloppy handwriting, it read: "I went down to Dave's place for a night of fun and games. I hope you enjoyed your day with the girls." He signed it with his name, and a little heart. She sighed, because it was so sweet that he would think to leave her a note somewhere that she would definitely see it, but within seconds the gears of her mind were rotating and she realized that all these things were connected. She knew where her stuff was.

Running out the door and down the stairs as quickly as she could, she made it down three floors in record time, much faster than she would have if she was to have waited for the elevator, which was something she would never do. That third floor down was the floor that Dave lived on, as obvious by all the empty apartments and the loud music coming from the only occupied place on the floor, music that she was not expecting at all. Normally when she was on this floor, she was exposed to hipster music she had never even heard of before, but this time, it was a song she recognized as one of the current pop hits. Her fist hit the door, attempting to knock louder than the music. Five minutes she stood there knocking, until the door opened a little bit, and a near-white blonde head peeked around it, dark shades obscuring the eyes.

"Let me in, Strider," she hissed, and he shook his head. "Tavros is in there, and I demand that you let me in. Now!"

"Can't let you do that, Vriska." He began to close the door on her, until she stuck her hand inside his apartment. "I will slam you in the door if you don't pull out." The music turned off, and she could hear Tavros' scared breathing on the other side. "Okay, fine. Your arm comes off now."

Right as he said that, she shoved her foot inside. "Let me in. I've had enough of your bullshit to last me a lifetime, now give me back my boyfriend and my clothes and we'll call it good."

"I still can't let you do that." Instead of closing the door more, he opened it a bit wider. "Well, I can't give you the clothes back, anyway. That would be a bit hard, due to what we've done with them. Sorry, Vriska, but you're gonna have to leave."

"I'm not leaving without my gown and bikini," she said, pushing the door open a little more. "Those things are mine and I'd like to know they're home safe with me."

Finally, after a few more minutes of this banter, he opened the door all the way, him and Tavros both behind it. "Come on in, I guess, but don't say I didn't warn you." She stepped inside, hands on her hips, a very angry expression on her face.

"What's the big deal here?" Her voice raised, as did one eyebrow. They were still behind her, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to turn around. Thankfully, or maybe not, they came in front of her instead, and she gasped at exactly what she saw. Two grown men, wearing clothes that belonged to her. Her long-time boyfriend, posing in her white gown, which hung limp against his bony frame. Her friend, wearing her bikini, with the top stuffed very obviously with pieces of paper. They were posing, quite obviously mocking her. And she was angrier than she had been before. "Oh, so _this_ is what you've been hiding? Cute."

"Vriska, we were, uh, just trying to see what it's like being you. I mean, you look fantastic whenever you wear this stuff, so we figured we'd give it a try..." Tavros had dropped his pose and was walking over to her, his metal leg braces hitting the ground with every bare-footed step. "We didn't mean any harm by it, okay?"

She glared at him, pushing his hand away when he tried to touch her arm with it. "You could have had the decency to ask, okay? I can't believe either of you, but especially you, Tavros! You know how much I love that gown, and you're now wearing it and you probably stretched it out getting it over your fucking huge shoulders." With only an eyeroll at Dave, she turned around and stormed out of the apartment, running back up the stairs before the tears had the chance to fall. They were disgusting, doing that to her and her stuff. It was wrong of them, and she was so hurt by it. Her door was still slightly open, and she went inside, collapsing on the couch and immersing herself in her video games. After all, her Pokémon were more loyal than those guys.

Hours passed, and the late evening turned to the dark of night. It had to have been nearly midnight when she heard the doorknob turning, and someone stepped inside. She didn't care; her Pokémon needed her, not whoever was there. "Just came to get my clothes, okay?" That was Dave's voice. "I left them here so you could be sure to get your precious swimsuit back. Tavros only told me a million times how much it means to you."

"Get your clothes and then get lost," she muttered in response, focusing more on her game than the fact that this meant that Dave walked through the building while wearing a bikini. "I don't want to deal with your shit anymore."

He disappeared into the bathroom, but when he came out, he was dressed in his normal attire and had her bikini in hand. "Here you go," he said, tossing it at her, "and have fun wearing that next summer. Bet you'll look better in it than I did."

"Yeah, whatever. You can leave now." Her game in one hand and her things in another, she motioned towards the door, which was once again opening, this time with a tall guy in a white gown coming in. "And you, you can just leave."

"I was planning to spend the night at Dave's, so that makes sense. Just came so you could have this back, since I know you won't sleep in anything else." With a sad sigh, Tavros walked past the couch where Vriska sat, not looking at her at all. However, Vriska knew him well enough to know that he was obviously upset at the whole thing, whether he meant to hurt her or not. When she heard the loud, very unmanly sobs coming from the bedroom, she knew she had done wrong, and she had to do something to fix it.

Ignoring the man who was waiting at her door, she got up from the couch and joined Tavros in the bedroom. He sat on the bed, still in her gown, his face buried in her hands. "Oh, sweetie, I didn't mean to make you cry..." It was the nicest voice she could muster, but it still sounded mean. "I'm just mad that you're wearing that."

"Great to know that a stupid piece of clothing means more to you than I do," he choked out, before looking at her straight in her blue eyes. "Why don't you go back out there and play your game, and I can just sit in here and cry?"

She crossed her arms as she stood there looking at his sobbing figure. "I don't want to play. Bitchlord isn't my boyfriend, you are."

"Of course that's what you're gonna say." He covered his eyes again. "Now tell me that you're going to leave me, because I'm waiting for it." When she didn't, he moved his hands and just stared. "Okay, where's the break-up? Where's the 'we need to go separate ways' talk you're about to give? Are you not going to do it?"

"No, I'm not, because that would be the jerk thing to do here. I might have been a bitch back there, but I'm not going to be a bitch now." She got up on the bed next to him. "Sorry about what I said about your shoulders. I like them, just so you know. They're one of my favorite parts about you."

His eyes widened a bit, and he wiped tears from them. "They are? What's your favorite part, then?" To say it, she got right up to his ear and whispered it, making his eyes widen a bit more as she backed away. "Oh, I get it. Well, what do you want to do about that?"

"What do you think?" she sarcastically asked, taking off her shirt and beginning to slide herself out of her pants. "I want you to get what you've got underneath that gown off and for you to join me underneath the blankets."

Standing in the front doorway waiting for Tavros, Dave was expecting maybe a loud fight or two, maybe some bangs, coming from the bedroom. He didn't expect that back room's door to shut, and the occasional loud moan or screamed name coming from it. After standing there awkwardly listening to that for a few moments, he walked out, locking and closing the door behind him. He had already been wearing Vriska's bikini, and he knew how much paper he had to use to stuff that—he didn't need the mental images coming to him of the real things that belonged in that top, real things that his friend was probably getting an eyeful of.

* * *

**A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr August 2nd, 2012.**

**Here's more of the old and fun stuff. Things begin to get weird starting with the next chapter. Please let me know if you enjoy this look into my old writing past. (:**


	3. Act I Part III

**Act I Part III**

_Let's Play Hide-n-Seek_

The lightning outside the window had Tavros huddling underneath the sheets, his leg braces clattering against each other. He hated storms like this, and whenever the thunder would sound, he'd let out a girlish yelp. Being alone at a moment like this was his worst nightmare, when it was dark and stormy and he just needed a hug from someone he loved. But, unlike normal, she wasn't there with him.

Twenty minutes were spent under those blankets, before the thunder from the storm seemed to calm down, and he poked his head out into the empty room. There was still rain hitting the window's glass, but the worst of the storm seemed to be long gone. He sighed, threw all the blankets to the end of the bed, and got up, legs shaking beneath him. His heart was racing, and he really needed that hug. However, getting that hug would require him being able to carry himself out of the room, which he did, but he forgot to redress himself in the process. As he was planning to go to bed when the storm hit, he was in nothing but his leg braces and a small pair of shorts.

Sadly, even in his half-dressed state, he didn't get so much as a smile when he came into the living room and found Vriska there. Like she normally was at this time of night, she was laying on the couch, her Game Boy in hand, playing Pokémon to her heart's content. "Come on, Bitchlord," she muttered, squinting at the screen, "kick some Elite ass, will you?"

"Vriska?" he asked, putting his hand in front of her game. "Did you even hear the storm?"

After a few moments of grumbling that she couldn't see the screen, she looked at him, slight concern in her eyes. "There was a storm? Oh, sorry Tav. I was playing and watching movies and..."

"It's okay. I know you didn't mean to leave me alone through the whole thing." He smiled and she giggled at him, playfully moving his hand so she could return to her gaming. His smile widened when she re-immersed herself in the game, because she hadn't so much as raised her voice at him like she normally would. He was, quite honestly, thankful that she wasn't raging at him, in the midst of a mood swing, which would have been more typical.

He carefully sat down on the end of the couch, then lifted her legs and scooted closer to her, setting them on top of his when he was comfortable. She didn't pay it any mind, due to her game, and that truly pleased him, because it meant he would get to admire his girlfriend without her noticing a thing. Back before she was into gaming like she was, he would do this to her while she'd be laying on the sofa watching movies, and she would be in her skimpy little nightgown which was easy for him to look up. But now she was laying in normal clothes, and although she looked as pleasing as she possibly could for being in sweats and an old shirt, his eyes were still hungry for a bit more. He wasn't going to get that hug, and now he was being denied getting a peek or two at her. Not like he was too terribly upset about that, though.

They both knew why she had begun to wear modest things, and it had all started at the very moment when she put her nightgown on and it didn't fit her like it used to. "We've got to start taking things seriously now, I guess," she had said while staring at herself in her gown, which was very tight on her. "I didn't want this to happen. I wanted to be married and stable and...not living in this place before we started a family. But it's too late for that now, isn't it?" And he had nodded and agreed with her on all of it. He knew this was his fault, that if he hadn't pulled his crossdressing stunt months almost half a year before, they never would have done what they did and gotten into this situation. Like she said, though, it was too late for it to not happen, and they just needed to deal with it. Fast forward to where they were now, two months after that, he knew they both still didn't want this to be happening, but they were making the best of the situation, even if it meant Vriska did nothing but lay on the couch playing Pokémon.

The smile on Tavros' face got bigger and bigger as he admired his lovely girlfriend, while she mumbled things to herself about her game. She wasn't even paying attention to him, focusing all the way on her game, and he was okay with that. If she so much as caught him glimpsing at her enlarged stomach, she would probably have asked him to stop, or worse, yelled at him to look away, because she was "too ugly for his eyes." He didn't think that, though, because what she was could only be described as the result of their love, and he did like admiring what he had helped create, even if he wasn't seeing much.

"Do you think it will like Pokémon too?" Vriska asked, leaning up a bit and moving her game to the side, allowing her to lock eyes with him. "If it doesn't, then we better make it. I'd like for it to carry on the good names of Bitchface and Bitchlord."

Before he could reply to that with so much as a laugh, a low wail came from outside, sending shivers down Tavros' back. As it got louder, a sense of panic overcame him, pushing Vriska's legs away so he could get to his feet. The sound, after reaching a very loud level, began to fade for a few moments, only to begin picking up in volume again. "We need to get out of here, and now!" he shouted, turning and looking at her. "Do you know what that siren means?"

"That some dumbass got hit by a car?" Vriska was sitting up, still with her game in hand. "We hear it like every single night. Calm down. You're acting like the building's on fire." She paused then, listening to the siren coupled with the sounds of people running down the stairs outside of their apartment. "Wait, where's everyone going? Did the car hit our building?"

"Vriska, we need to get downstairs. Now. That's not the normal siren we hear around here. That's not the normal one at all. That's a freaking tornado siren, and I knew that storm was bad news." He grabbed her hand and started pulling her up and towards the door. "Come on. We need to get downstairs right now."

"Why, though? We live in the city. Tornadoes don't come into cities..." She resisted his pulling for a few moments, before giving in and coming to her feet. "And besides, what good will going downstairs do us?"

He gave her a look that could only be described as dirty, but by the time she looked to see it, it was gone. "They do too come into cities, and we don't exactly live on the bottom floor here, so if it happens to come our way, we'd be fucked. Downstairs, now."

"Dave lives downstairs. Are we gonna chill at his place until this is all over?"

"There are two things wrong with that idea. One, he doesn't live on the bottom floor, so we'd still be in serious danger, and two, he isn't even in town right now, so we can't get in." Tavros, sighing at Vriska's stubbornness to accept the serious nature of the situation, tugged at her arm again. "Now let's get down there before the only places left are too small for both of us."

The thought of having to both squeeze into somewhere small made Vriska shudder, and she finally cooperated enough for them to get to the door, before she spoke again. "Are you seriously going to go out there without a shirt or proper pants? That's kind of strange of you..." But then she remembered that he wasn't just casually leaving the apartment; he was fleeing for his life, and when one's life is on the line, all rules of decency go out the window.

They made it out and down two floors before something else happened—the lights in the building shut off, causing Tavros to scream like a little girl and cling to Vriska for dear life. "I hate storms so much, you don't even know," he muttered, trying to calm himself down. "I don't want to live here anymore, okay? Let's move somewhere where we're living in the ground floor apartment, or, better yet, living in a house with a basement, or, best of all, somewhere where this can't happen!"

"Yeah, no kidding! But, you know, we kind of don't have the money to do that right now, thanks to...well, you know what!" Even though it was pitch black and they couldn't see each other, he knew she was pointing at her stomach, because he knew that the child inside of it was trapping them in this place. "So we're just going to have to deal with this stuff!"

The power flickered back on for a moment, allowing Tavros to confirm what he was sure of, and also allowing him to see that the staircase in front of them was packed with people. "I know, I know, but it would be nice to live somewhere where we weren't stuck out in the open as tornado fodder while everyone else saves themselves."

"There is no fucking tornado!" Vriska went to slap Tavros, but the hand she chose was the one that held her Game Boy, and when it connected with his bare shoulder, it made a loud cracking noise.

"What the fuck, Vriska! I'm trying to save your life here, and yet you're beating me with a video game that you better hope you didn't just break!" She gasped and rushed to turn it on, finding that the game was just fine, while he grumbled about the pain in his shoulder that he didn't exactly want. "I'm expecting an apology for that outburst there..."

She snorted at the comment. "You aren't getting any apology from me. If you hadn't decided you were going to pull your stupid crossdressing stunt, and if you hadn't been such a whiner about it afterward, we wouldn't be here right now, and therefore this wouldn't be happening. It's all your fault, so suck it up."

"All my fault? I wasn't the one who decided that comforting someone who was upset required getting them out of their clothes!" He let go of her and pushed her away a little, nearly knocking her into someone else. "If you're going to be like this, I'm done with you."

"Done with me? You can't be done with me! If you are, you're going to look like a total douche for leaving me!"

"It's better than dealing with your stupid lies and guilt trips." He was going to say more, but a loud sound from outside startled him and sent him back into her arms. "Okay, maybe I'm not done with you. After all, you're always there to hold me when I'm scared, and you are the love of my life and all that cheesy stuff."

She laughed, before another noise had him clinging even more. "I better be the love of your life, okay? I mean, if I wasn't anymore, I guess I'd understand why. I don't spend nearly as much time with you as I should." Even in the dark, she was easily able to begin tickling the back of his neck, at which his reaction was to push her away.

If it hadn't been so dark, he would have noticed the nearly empty stairs he pushed her down.

* * *

Once again, it was storming, with Tavros curled up under the blankets in the bed, completely alone and wishing for someone to comfort him. Unlike the last time, there was no one to come keep him company, which, as he knew, was his own fault. Had he thought a bit before he reacted, Vriska never would have fallen down the stairs, and therefore wouldn't have become so isolated from him. They were still together, sure, but they weren't even close to the same.

It took some time, but the storm passed, and he climbed out of bed, going to check on Vriska to make sure she was okay. Storms now scared her more than they did him, due to the events of that night, and when one came on she hid herself under her own blankets, as far from him as she could possibly get. This time, though, she was laying on the couch in a blanketed heap, the sounds of her panicked breathing and video game playing giving her away. "Vriska, you can come out now," he said, beginning to pull blankets away. "The storm's gone."

"It's not gone until I can see the sun." Using a very shaky hand, she adjusted her remaining blankets. "Now leave me alone. I don't need you trying to kill me again."

Instead of listening to her, he carefully sat down on the floor next to her. "I'm not going to try to kill you. There's no siren, and we aren't trying to get downstairs in complete darkness. There's nothing I can do that will hurt you."

Still shaking, she pushed the blankets off of her face, revealing half of her face that was just barely bruised from the fall she took. "Nothing, yeah. You know what today should have been, right?" Not giving him enough time to respond, she continued pushing the blankets off of herself, her hand shaking more and more. "Today should have been the day that our lives changed forever. But no, you had to push me down the stairs and destroy that, didn't you?"

"I-I'm sorry about that, Vriska. I didn't realize we were that close to them, and I was scared, and..."

"And what? You want to take it back? Want to make it so I didn't fall? Well it's way too late for that. Get the blankets off my legs, will you?" She had pushed as far as she could with her hand, and she was very slowly starting to sit up, unable to continue freeing herself. He nodded and did as she demanded, getting them off and revealing her braced legs. "So instead of us becoming parents today, like we were supposed to, it's just another day of me living this shitty existence that you set me up for. Isn't that great?"

As quickly as she could, which was rather slow, she got herself up and began walking back the to the bedroom, completely in silence. Tavros, still sitting on the floor, sighed, knowing that Vriska was very much hurting, and after a couple moments of deep reflection, he decided that he would join her in bed. No sooner had he gotten to his feet that he heard a noise he would rather not have ever heard again in his life.

This time, though, the wailing of the siren was accompanied with the terrified screams of an extremely broken woman.

* * *

**A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on September 3rd, 2012.**

**This fic is definitely darker than the previous two, and starts a trend of randomly dark spots in the story. Don't worry, the next fic isn't nearly as sad.**


	4. Act I Part IV

**Act I Part IV**

_Let's Play Mind Games_

Game nights and the joys of being able to spend hours upon hours of video game discussing were always something that Tavros and Vriska looked forward to, no matter how broken they were. It probably was a bad idea for this particular one to happen where it did, in an apartment covered in toys and clothing tailored for a young child. The second the door was opened to let them in, Vriska, who had already been in tears for whatever reason, began to cry rather heavily, triggered by the sight of kiddy things into remembering what had been taken from her.

"Hey, guys," John said with an awkward laugh, stepping out from behind the door and kicking a small xylophone out of view. "Sorry it's so disorganized in here. We've been having some problems getting a certain someone to put their things away." As he bent down to pick up a small stuffed dog, they came in, with Vriska being her crying mess and Tavros just trying to get her inside before she disturbed the neighbors. John looked up and saw Vriska's tears, and his face fell into a frown. "Is this mess causing that? I'm sorry if it is."

"It's not your fault, don't worry," Tavros replied, brushing some hair from Vriska's face. "She's been crying off and on all day, and the slightest things happen to start it. Maybe she'll calm down a bit when she starts playing Pokémon. Her gaming seems to make her happy."

When she heard that suggestion, a very small smile appeared on Vriska's face. "I've been meaning to show you my team on HeartGold, John," she said, quickly drying her tears even though there was still the sound of crying in her voice. "On top of Bitchface Two and Bitchlord the Second, little Spiderguy is pretty great."

"Yeah, I'd like to see this team of yours. Just give me a minute to clean up, and then we can sit down and look at them." John stood back up and grinned at her, causing her to happily giggle, which pleased Tavros. "Why don't you both sit, actually? I don't like my guests standing around when they don't have to." While Vriska eagerly took his request to heart, as she was standing without the braces she was supposed to use after damaging both her knees in her incident with the stairs, Tavros chose to go find Jade instead.

She was right where he figured she was, sitting in the hall against a closed bedroom door, listening for any sounds of the kid who was inside of it. "Oh, hi, Tavros," she whispered, motioning for him to sit across from her, which he did. "How did you know I was back here?"

"I happen to remember you saying that this is bedtime, and I know you well enough to know you would be listening until she's asleep in there. It's a shame that we only come over here at night, because I'd really like to get to see her. Last time I did, she was pretty little." Tavros, in his attempt to stay as quiet as possible, stifled his end-of-speaking laugh, and chose to instead smile at Jade.

"Yeah, the last time you saw her was the last time me and John got to go out on a date..." Leaning back against the door a bit, Jade sighed. "Maybe you and Vriska could babysit her one of these days, and let us have a day to ourselves."

"I like the plan, but Vriska, well, she might not be able to handle it. She can't even breed her Pokémon anymore, because just the thought of a baby anything can put her into a bad mood. I wish there was a way to fix it, but I don't think there is." Saying that Tavros felt guilty for causing those problems for Vriska was an understatement; he didn't go a single day without feeling terrible and wondering how their lives would be if he hadn't accidentally pushed her down the stairs. "So I think we're going to have to pass on the job."

Standing up after declaring the child asleep, Jade smiled and said, "It's no problem, really." As she helped Tavros get back to his feet, another idea came to her. "How about we go in there and take a look at her, huh? You were just talking about not having seen her, so how about it?"

"That sounds great, actually." With an even bigger smile, Jade opened the bedroom door and, since they both expected to see a sleeping kid inside, they were taken aback when there was a toddler, sitting in her bed, playing with her toys in silence.

"Casey, darling, aren't you supposed to be sleeping?" Jade asked, going to the side of the bed and looking down at the dark-haired girl. "Bedtime isn't playtime." In response, she got a bunch of babbling and a toy rabbit handed to her. "No, sweetie, this isn't time for me to be playing animals with you. This is time for me to be with my friends, and you to be sleeping."

The small child noticed Tavros then, pushing a stuffed salamander in his direction. "I think you should listen to your mom and sleep, you cutie," he said, giving her a little wave. "I'll come over here sometime and we can play then. Is that good?"

With a shake of her head, Casey made it clear that she was in no mood to be sleeping, and with a deep sigh, Jade ended the fight about it, pulling the blankets off of the girl's legs and letting her get out of bed and run gleefully out of the room. "Wait, fuck! She can't go out there! You seriously just said Vriska seeing her might be a problem!"

And a problem it was. No sooner than Casey and her little footsteps got into their living room did Vriska begin crying once more, jerking her game from John's hands and immersing herself in as a distraction. "What is Casey doing out of bed? She's supposed to be sleeping right now!" John was not pleased, and he made that clear when Jade came rushing into the room. "Get her back in bed. She has a bedtime for a reason, and she needs to follow it."

"I'm really sorry, John, but she wasn't sleeping and she wanted to play. The only reason I am going to take her and put her back in her room right now is because Vriska is obviously distressed by her being in here." Having cornered the little girl, Jade picked her up and, ignoring her screaming, carried her back to the bedroom, leaving a tearful Vriska, an angered John, and Tavros, who was once again wishing that he hadn't messed those things up back when he did, behind.

"Oh, look! Wild Mareep!" Vriska squealed out, and it seemed that things might have gone back to normal, for the moment, in her little world. "Too bad it's so weak compared to my team. It's a good Pokémon, really."

"You only say that because you always use some form of one. There are much, much better Pokémon out there. Take Chinchou for example. Great Pokémon. Great typing. Totally better than Mareep." John, looking onto Vriska's screen, laughed a bit. "Too bad that you'll never get your head out of that box and us—did you just catch that Mareep?"

She nodded, and John smacked his forehead. "What, I wanted it. Weak, yes. Good Pokémon, yes. I need it."

"Vriska, did you ignore my speech on why Chinchou is better?"

"I might have, yeah. Now leave me alone. Me and my team have some nicknaming to do, before I fight you about smack talking my precious Mareep." Pulling her game so that only she could see it, she fell silent aside from button pressing, making John just a bit mad at her behavior. Tavros, on the other hand, was completely used to strange things like that, and he just pulled out a chair from the dining room table and sat to watch. When Jade came back from putting Casey in bed, she too sat in a chair, and patiently waited for someone to say something.

The next words happened to come from John, after Vriska shakily stood up, walked across the room, and handed her game to Tavros. "What, are you done playing? Did your team of weak-ass Mareeps lose or something?"

"No, they didn't lose. I just gave Tav the game so he can admire my team, while I handle you." She hit his ribs a few times with her elbow after she sat back in her spot. "Now take back all the shit you said about Mareep."

"Never. Chinchou is better. Lanturn is better. Mareep and its evolutionary family are decent at best. They just don't cut it for me. Sorry, Vriska, but that's the way it is." He put a hand on Vriska's head and rustled her blonde hair a bit. "Now why don't you admit I'm right, and we can call it good?"

With a hair flip that sent her long locks into his face, she defiantly said, "No way, Egbert. Mareep is the best Pokémon there is, and you saying otherwise is a disgrace to you and everything you like." A second later, she retracted the opening statement. "I mean, Mareep is the best electric Pokémon."

But the damage there had already been done, as John cringed back from her and shook his head. "I can't believe you're claiming a second generation Pokémon to be the best. The best has to come from the first generation, and that would make Pidgeot, my personal favorite, much, much better than your stupid Mareep."

"Isn't a Pidgeot just a fatter version of the stupid Pokémon that the first big guy you fight has? That means its stupid and weak to Mareep. How can something be better than something it's weak to? Think your points through better, okay?"

"Okay, okay. Cacnea. That's also better than Mareep. Third generation, yes, but amazing Pokémon all the same." John gave Vriska a small and sassy nod. "Care to argue that one with me? Oh wait. You can't, can you?"

She shrugged and pushed him a little. "I have no fucking idea what a Cacnea is, so...care to make a point I can argue with, maybe?"

"Fine, you lame woman you. How about Wooper? It's cute, it's strong, and your Mareep can't even touch it with electric attacks. So, what about that?"

"Wooper is a stupid Pokémon. What kind of cheap person needs to have a type made useless just for their precious weak thing to be good? A person like you, John. A person like you."

"Take that back. My Wooper is named Jade, and she is a precious little badass."

From her seat on the other side of the room, the real Jade squealed and blushed, before she looked at Tavros, who was absentmindedly looking at the game Vriska had handed him. "Hey, are you paying any attention to what they're talking about?" she asked him, to which he shook his head. "Is something wrong?"

"Not wrong, but off. Something is not right here. Ever since her accident, it has been in her hands at almost all times, and now she hands it off to me? It doesn't make sense." All of this was said under his breath, as he turned the game on. Once the screen was illuminated, he raised his voice back to normal. "I'm taking a look at your stuff, Vriska. I want to make sure your team is as good as it could be."

"It's six Mareeps," John said back. "I don't know how good six of those pitiful creatures can be."

Vriska covered his mouth and giggled at Tavros. "It's not even supposed to be good, okay? You've just got to look at them and tell me what you think!"

"As you wish, Vriska..." The game was completely on, and he was accessing her team, just for his eyes to widen and a large smile to appear on his face. Completely speechless, he turned to Jade, showing her the team. Her reaction was to clap happily and squeal.

"What? What's going on? Vriska, did you manage to catch a shiny or something? What are they so excited about?" John pulled the hand off of his mouth and looked angrily at Vriska, but she was too busy grinning along with Tavros to notice. "Come on, someone explain before I go see it for myself!"

Right when Jade, who was able to collect herself fastest, went to tell John what was going on, the front door opened and in came Dave, wearing a shirt that was many sizes too small for him and an old Pokémon blanket wrapped around his legs like a skirt. "Am I too late for the game party?" he asked, before looking at the faces of the people in the room, and deciding that maybe he was.

* * *

"Were you being serious about the team, Vriska? Like, was what you named all of them the truth, or is this some sick joke that you're playing on yourself? It sounds like something you would do, to maybe erase the fact that what happened did actually happen..." They were back in their apartment, laying in bed, Vriska rapidly pressing buttons as she renamed all of her Mareeps once more. "You aren't lying, right?"

"I took the time to catch six Mareeps, three male, three female. I spent the time naming them in a way to get a message across to you. Do you really think I would be doing this for my own mental stability? No. In fact, I'd ask if I am even less stable than before." Her voice held a hint of whining in it, and Tavros knew that she was on the verge of tears. "Do you not believe what I told you?"

He scooted a bit closer to her, resting his head on her shoulder and watching her play. "No, I believe you. I was just making sure that it was safe to believe you. The last thing I want is for me to get my hopes up, again, just for everything to come crashing down, again."

"The last time was your fault. And I know, I know, absolutely nothing has changed in our living or romantic situation since the last time. I'm still not in the place I though I would be when we started a family, but...we can handle it." There was the crying, as she sat her game down on the table beside her. "As long as I don't fall down any stairs this time, I'm sure it'll be fine."

"Yeah, it will be fine. And you know what? If you want one of those things to change, well, maybe it will. Who knows?"

"You know, Tavros. That's why you just brought that up."

He gave a very small snort, before cuddling up against her, making sure to be careful not to push her off the bed or anything. "Good point, Vriska. Oh, and I love you."

"I love you too, Tavros. I really do. Ignore the fact that I'm crying and just appreciate that I am able to say I love you even after you hurt me and killed our first baby."

"Don't worry, I appreciate it every second. And this time will be different. I swear it on the lives of your Pokémon, and I don't plan on killing them."

* * *

**A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on September 18th, 2012.**

**And now things get back to happy! Sort of! :D The next chapter is the end of the "act" for the moment, so send me your thoughts and tell me how you think stuff is going to go down!**


	5. Act I Part V

**Act I Part V**

_Let's Play in the Snow_

The first snow of the season was always the worst. Everyone on the roads never remembered how to drive in the weather, even if they had driven in it many times before in previous years. No one was ever happy to see the snow—they grumbled and whined about it falling from the sky. And even though the "storm" was apparently bad enough to make a couple schools close for the day, it really wasn't much of an inconvenience to Tavros on his way to work that morning.

In fact, the bigger problem to him was the fact that everyone coming inside for their morning coffee and sausage biscuits was angry beyond belief. He was forced to put up with more verbal abuse than normal, and that was saying something, as he had a regular customer who would yell at him every time he was cashiering. Everything possible that could be wrong for these people seemed to be going wrong, and they were all taking it out on him. Each and every one of them. As the hours dragged on, and the snow kept falling at its slow and steady pace, he began wishing that something, anything, would happen to break him from this prison, before he lost composure and started stuttering at everyone who came to order.

That something he was waiting for happened to be a phone call, one that came just as he returned to working after his lunch break. If it had been anyone else who was in the middle of a shift, they would have been forced to wait until they were on break to handle it, but since he had been working this same job for a long time, and he could also need to rush home at any moment, the management let him keep his phone on his person. He answered the phone within seconds, after he heard the special ringtone he had set for Vriska—after all, she was his reason for keeping his phone on him.

Half an hour before, Vriska had been sitting on one of the benches at the mall, absentmindedly playing HeartGold and saying things to herself, while she waited for the friends who had left her there to come back. She hadn't wanted to go to the mall at all, but it was something to pass the time, and she was, according to both John and Jade, spending way too much of her time alone in her bedroom. To her it wasn't a problem, but to them it was, and they dragged her along on this adventure, leaving her sitting on this bench when she started complaining of her legs starting to hurt. They swore they'd be right back, the two of them and little Casey, and they'd take her home once they brought their car around to this side of the building.

She wouldn't have ever noticed that it was taking them an awful long time if it hadn't been for a security guard coming up to her asking if she was okay. "Yeah, I'm perfectly okay," she said in response, waving him away. "Don't worry. Nothing is going to happen to me. And if something is going to happen, then I will definitely cause a scene." That comment earned her a stern glare and a warning that, if it wasn't snowing out, she would have been escorted to the curb. And if it hadn't been snowing, she probably would have gone. The people in the mall were constantly questioning her about why she was there, if she was lost, and, most annoyingly, if there was any possibility at all of her going into labor right there so they could watch.

There was nothing more that she wanted to do than go home, lay in bed, and play Pokémon, but she had to deal with the questions and wait for her ride to come back. When that security guard got in her business, she took the opportunity to check the time, and it was way later than she realized, but that wasn't the first thing she noticed when she saw her phone. She had an unread message from John from only moments before, and, with the guard still glaring at her, she checked it. It was long, but with a good reason: while they were bringing the car around for her, some teen who was illegally behind the wheel of another car slammed into the side of their vehicle, and that she would need to get a ride home, unless she wanted to come sit with them at the hospital while they all got checked out, and then she'd need a ride over there.

It didn't matter where she wanted to go, because she knew who she had to call. And so she pressed his speed dial button and waited for Tavros to answer his phone, which she knew wouldn't take long at all because it would get him out of working. "Hey, what's going on?" he asked when he picked up, and she could hear some rude customer yelling at him for being on the phone. "Is it time?"

"Oh, no, it's not!" She gave a forced laugh, knowing that there was a slightly serious situation going on that he wasn't aware of. "I just need you to come get me from the mall. There's been a bit of an accident."

"Accident? You didn't fall down an escalator, did you?" Without even waiting for her to speak and tell him he was wrong, he started off on her. "Vriska, this is why I didn't want you going anywhere. You'd be easy to break more, and...I bet you didn't even think about that when you decided to go!"

It was there that she cut him off. "I was in no way involved in this accident, okay? Some idiot ran into John's car and I guess it was bad enough that they got sent to the hospital, and I kind of want to go see them but if you're going to be a douche and do this, never mind. I'll walk home." Against her better judgment, she stood up, put her game in her purse, and began walking toward the nearest door. "You'll find me dead in a snowbank somewhere."

"Vriska, don't you dare walk anywhere. Stay wherever you are, and I'll come get you." His receiver was muffled for a moment as he explained to someone, most likely his manager, what the deal was, before returning to the conversation. "I'll be there in a few minutes. Please don't do anything you'd regret. Please."

Another forced laugh found its way through her lips, as she made her way back to the bench. "I'll stay right here then, I guess. I wouldn't knowingly do something to endanger my sweet little girl, and you know it." She heard him groan a little, as a result of giving a gender to their child, which they had refused to actually learn. "Just hurry up and get over here."

"I'll go as fast as I can in the snow. It's still coming down, even if it's not much, so I'll be slower than normal, but..." His voice trailed off for a moment. "Please stay safe where you are. Remember that I love you and him both." He hung up, but only after Vriska groaned at his gender-giving, and her assurance that she loved him too.

She had no idea how long it took him to get there, but she knew that she had spent most of the time thinking about their little battle about if their baby was a boy or a girl. In all honesty, the only reason they chose not to be told was so they could argue about it, and argue they did. Almost every conversation they had brought it up, and while Tavros was convinced that he was correct and that they'd be having a boy (which he was going to name either Dante or Rufio or maybe both), she was almost completely certain that she was carrying a girl. But unlike him, where he already had names picked out, she was clueless as to what name to use.

That was what she was thinking about when she got called asking where she was in the mall, and that thought stuck with her up until she was safely in the car, cold from being in the snow for a few moments, but otherwise perfectly okay. "So, they got wrecked, huh?" Tavros asked her as he started to drive away. "Pretty lucky that you weren't in the car with them when it happened. I would have hated to lose a second child, especially when we've gotten further with this one than the last one..."

"Well, yeah, if I had been in the car, I would have cursed my terrible luck and hoped that maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't be becoming parents to another dead kid. But I guess I have pretty good luck. I mean, the reason I wasn't in the car is because my legs were hurting too bad, which is a result of bad luck, but..." She blinked as she tried to figure out her own train of thought, before biting her lip. "I'm kind of sad now."

"Don't be sad, Vriska. They're fine, you're fine, I'm fine. Everything is okay. There is absolutely nothing here for you to be sad about." His eyes on the road, Tavros didn't get to see Vriska's head turn down, but he did hear a small groan from her. "Okay, what's wrong, aside from the fact that our friends are in the hospital?"

She perked her head back up and gave a big smile. "Nothing's wrong, really. Just playing up the fact that I said I'm sad, that's all." The demeanor she possessed gave him no reason to question her more, which she thought was perfect—she was biting down on her tongue to keep herself quiet, and if she needed to speak, who knew what would have come out of her mouth.

* * *

The first thing they saw when they got to the room they were told to go to was a bruised face, one belonging to a certain mister John Egbert. As he was quick to explain, when their car was hit, he happened to get a fist full speed at his head, causing the bruises, but that was all the damage done to him. In fact, the worst damage anyone got was two broken fingers, and that was only because it was Jade's hand that hit his face. "We're just going to be here for a little bit longer, and then we'll be able to go, but then we've got to go deal with that jerk who wrecked us," he said, while sitting on the end of the bed they were making Jade be in, "and I'd really like to go home, but we can't quite yet."

"Why do you want to go home? Don't you want to ring some brat's neck for doing this?" Vriska took a seat in the only open chair in the room, one right next to a curled-up Casey. "Or is there something else?"

The little girl on the chair began whining about how scared she was, and John pointed at her. "She's the reason I want to go home. She needs an animal to curl up with, a story read to her, and a nice long nap. She can only have one of those things here, though, but she won't do that without the other two..."

Standing in the doorway still, Tavros sighed. "I could run out and get the stuff for her, if you want. It would take probably an hour, but it's better than nothing, right?" In all honesty, he didn't want to go. He hated driving in the snow, and he really didn't want to have to go home to come back to go home again. "Hand me your keys, and I'll get going." John reached into his pocket and extracted his key ring, from which he took their apartment key, and tossed it over to Tavros.

"We'll stay here until you get back, promise. Thanks for doing this, by the way."

"You can't do it, so I will. It's the right thing to do." He came into the room just to kiss Vriska goodbye, and then left, getting out to his car in record time, and starting the cold and snowy drive home as safely as he could. His goal was to get there and back in one piece, and he was going to assure his safety by being even more careful than usual.

It took getting to the apartment building, up the multiple flights of stairs, and opening the door to their place for him to realize that he had no idea which animal to get, or which book. A call to the group at the hospital was required, he knew. "Okay, I'm here. What am I supposed to get? She's got like fifty animals, and even more books lying around. Do I just grab whatever, or is there something she wants?"

"Her salamander. Get that. She won't sleep without it. As for the book, get whatever's nearest her bed." Taking John's orders there to heart, Tavros went into Casey's room, located her salamander and her book, and grabbed both, which he told John. "Great. Thanks for doing that for us. We'll see you back here in a bit, okay?"

"Yeah, in a bit. The snow's still coming down, so it may take longer than you'd hope." He went to hang up then, but there was a nagging at the back of his mind that forced him to ask one last question: "What's Vriska doing right now?"

John gave a laugh that was slightly concerning, but the worry was gone when he spoke. "Just playing her Pokémon game. She's fighting Red right now, and, as I'm sure you know, it snows up there in the remakes. It's funny to listen to. But she's fine, don't worry. If anything happens, which it won't, we'll call you and give you details."

"Sounds great. I'll get there as soon as I can." That was when he hung up, leaving their apartment with the door locked behind him, and he went back out to the car and was on his merry way. It had to be when he was halfway back that his phone started ringing, and he ignored it, because safe driving meant no talking on the phone.

The person who was trying to call him happened to be John, and he was in a slight panic when the phone wasn't answered, so he tried again. And again. "He's not answering," he said after the sixth try. "But if he gets back, he isn't going to leave."

"I know, I know..." Jade, who was now sitting up next to him, sighed. "Keep calling him. I'll keep pressing this button and hoping someone gets in here soon before she starts to scream." She was, of course, talking about Vriska, who had gone from peacefully playing her game to sitting in the chair in complete silence, her bottom lip in her mouth and her feet curled up under her. "I can't believe this. Really can't. There is no way that she's..."

"Jade, we've got to believe her." Tossing his phone aside, as his seventh try didn't work, John got off the bed and dropped down in front of Vriska. "Isn't that right? You told us the truth, didn't you? This isn't a joke?"

When Vriska opened her mouth, all that came out was a loud whine for a few moments, before she nodded and said, "No, I'm pranking you both. I'm just sitting here, pretending to be going into labor and having contractions and stuff. This is all a fucking ruse. I don't hurt at all."

"I can see that you're lying, Vriska...but, uh, this isn't something that just happens like this. How long have you been hiding this?"

She shrugged, wincing as a wave of pain came on. "Since I woke up, I guess. It wasn't hurting too bad, but I knew what was going on and I figured, hey, no sense in ruining my day's plans when they involve walking and they'll probably make me walk around a bunch if I go over there now. And look, here I am at the hospital, right when I need to be. Isn't that perfect?"

"Wait, did you just say you've been dealing with this all day?" John looked up and back at Jade, who's mouth was hanging half-open at that revelation. "Do you not feel anything less than terrible pain or something? From what I've read and heard, this stuff is really painful..."

"It is, but I can tolerate a fuck lot more of pain than most people. That's what happens when you fall down a flight of stairs, destroy both of your knees, and become paralyzed for like a week. You learn to ignore the pain. And that's what I did here." She screamed for a second, before throwing her head back and whimpering. "But now it's too much. Where's Tavros so I can ring his fucking neck for this?"

John reached for his phone and checked to see if he had been called back—but he hadn't. "Somewhere out on the road, okay? He'll be here as soon as he can be, and hopefully that will be very, very soon." As he said that, two nurses, alerted by Jade's button pushing, came in, and immediately were directed to help with Vriska, to the point of getting her up and out of the room. The last words that John was able to say to her before she left were simple, that she wouldn't be alone for too much longer.

If he had known that "too much longer" would be as long as it was, he definitely would have chosen different words. This, of course, was because Tavros was still ignoring each and every one of the calls his phone was getting. At first, it was because he was driving. Then it was because of how many there were, he figured it was just John being impatient, and that if he answered, he'd be told to hurry up, not that anything was going on with his girlfriend.

He did eventually answer the phone, but not at one of John's calls. The call he chose to answer happened to be one from Dave, who he wasn't expecting to have call him at all. It just so happened that he was stopped at a light and when the call came, he had just settled in right behind the stop line at one of the longest lights in the area—he knew he had more than enough time to handle the call. "Hey, could you come get me? My car won't start, and it is too damn cold for me to be walking home from here."

"Uh, I guess I could. I mean, you are kind of far away from where I am right now, but I'm sure John and Jade and Casey would understand if I'm a little late getting this stuff to them." He looked at the toy and book in his passenger side seat. "I'll give them a quick call and tell them I'll be late, and I'll head right over there. Same place as usual, right?"

"You know it. Now come get me. It's fucking cold." Dave laughed and hung up, leaving Tavros with the task of calling John, which he did the moment he pulled into the next parking lot he saw. He punched in the number and waited for the dark-haired man to answer his phone, but no such answer happened. Instead of trying again, he just left a simple message explaining that Dave needed some help, and that he'd be even later than he should be.

If John had realized three seconds sooner that his phone had been put on silent, he would have gotten that call when it was made. Alas, he didn't get it until minutes later, as he was sitting next to Vriska, who was in a state of anger and pain, and getting very upset at the fact that she was still alone. When he saw that he had the message, he put it on speaker, allowing both of them to hear it: "It'll be a bit longer than I thought it would be, and I'm sorry about that. Dave called, and he needs me to go get him, so I'll go do that, and I'll be over there as soon as I get him. I promise."

"Are you kidding me?" Vriska said under her breath, glaring at the phone. "He's going to pick getting his friend over this? Really?"

"He doesn't know this is going on right now, okay? We'll get him over here as soon as we possibly can." John smiled, before trying to call Tavros once more. Without fail, his call went unanswered, leaving the two of them sitting there hoping that he really would get there quickly.

Fate, however, wanted things to happen a little differently. It was a good forty-five minutes before Dave was acquired and in the car, meaning he was an hour out from where the hospital was, and on the ride back to where he belonged, disaster struck in the form of an accident, one taking place right in front of them. There was, naturally, no choice but to help the victims and make sure that everyone involved was okay, but this had a consequence. When the police arrived on scene, they chose to question the two who were simply helping.

Since Tavros had no idea what was waiting for him at the hospital, he didn't argue in the slightest with the demand. After all, he was just doing what was right, and he really did think that all he was doing was holding up a little girl's nap time. Once they were back in the car and back on the road, after a couple hours of dealing with the accident and being treated to a meal from one of the parties involved, Tavros' phone began ringing for what seemed like the millionth time that day.

Doing his duty as passenger, Dave answered it. "This is the phone of a driving douchebag, so I'm answering it," he playfully said upon pressing it to his face. "What can I do for you?" As the person on the other end, naturally John, spoke, a small frown formed on Dave's lips, which was almost actually visible by the time the conversation was over, a lot of "sure" and "mmhmm"s on his part. "Dude, we need to go to your place. He said something about a bag? I don't even know what he was going on about, honestly. Lots of screaming and threats about you in the background. I think Vriska might be having a meltdown or something."

"A bag? The only bag that I can think of that I would need, well, doesn't make sense in this situation, and that's because it's the bag with the baby stuff in it, and there's no way that...oh." His grip on the steering wheel tightened. "Oh fuck. You said she's having a meltdown, and John mentions that...what am I missing by being here and not there?"

"I can tell you what you're missing." Dave put the phone down back where he got it from as he spoke, giving it a dirty look from under his sunglasses. "You're missing being bitched at by a crazy lunatic of a woman."

If it wasn't for the weather, Tavros would have slammed on the brakes and made Dave walk from there, but the snow was still coming down, and so he just kept the idea to himself. "She's not crazy. She's been through a lot, and I can't believe I'm out here on the roads doing all of this while she's there, without me, possibly having our son or daughter who I really hope is a son because I have a name for him and everything and, fuck, I am the worst person alive."

"No, there are worse. Just keep driving and do what John said. That bag. Get that. Oh, and I don't know how you and her are going to raise this thing, when you both are so wrapped up in your video game worlds to care about the real one. Like, honestly? I bet she's playing her Pokémon game right now."

The best thing for Tavros to do then was focus on driving and not what Dave had said. It was hard, but he accomplished it, and within two hours of that, he was finally returning to the hospital, nearly forgetting to grab the original items he was sent to retrieve as he went inside. Even though he knew there was something much bigger for him to be worrying with, he made sure to get the stuffed salamander and the book to Casey before he did anything else. When he saw the little girl, she smiled at him, taking the animal and hugging it, then turning to him and hugging him as well. "Thank you," she said in a very quiet voice, "I like these."

"I hope you like them. I went on a wild journey to get those for you." That was all he said to her before he disappeared on a search for wherever they were keeping his girlfriend, because by that point he was feeling absolutely terrible for doing so many things for others, and leaving her completely alone in the process.

When he did find her, after actually finding John and being taken to her by him, she was doing like Dave had rudely suggested, and she was playing HeartGold, but unlike normal, she was completely silent in doing so. No random mutters, no outbursts, nothing. The only sound coming from her was her button mashing, until she noticed that he was there. Moving the game so it wasn't covering her face, he immediately noticed her tear-stained cheeks. "Hi there, Tavros. It's about damn time that you show up."

"Things happened." He pulled a chair from against the wall to right next to the bed where she was. "And I guess things happened here, too? Care to tell me why you're in here like this?"

"You'd already know this if you would have answered your phone, but the basic story is that you left, I played my game to keep my mind off all the pain I was in, it got to be too much, and then they brought me in here because I had been hiding the fact that I had been in labor for a while, which is not a very smart idea at all." She sighed and closed her game to completely focus on him, giving him her hand, which he gently squeezed. "I wish you had been here, but I know, my fault for trying to be strong and hide things."

The squeezing on her hand got a bit harder. "So, how did it go? Was it bad? Do you want to kill me for not being here?"

"Kill you? No, I'd much rather have you be alive, thanks. It was pretty bad, but that might be because of me being stubborn and not letting them give me that pain whatever. And it went as well as it could have, when I'm crying half because of how bad it hurts and half because you weren't here to witness it." Vriska's eyes caught his, and she gave him a smile. "You've got to see her. She's adorable. Looks a lot like what you would if you were a tiny girl."

"That's cute...wait." He blinked a couple times before smiling as well. "You were right all along. It was a girl, just like you said. So what are you going to name her? Or did you name her already?"

"Was waiting for you, but I have the name picked out. And no, it's not Bitchlord or Bitchface. Those are terrible names. It's something a bit more fitting of the situation today."

* * *

Unlike most girls her age, little Snow wasn't interested in dolls or animals. She would play with them, sure, but she didn't feel any attachment to them, which made her seem a bit weird. Her parents, however, were quite okay with that, choosing to introduce her to the things they liked while she was still young.

"Momma, I wanna watch 'tchlord fight more 'reeps!" she whined one night before bed, clinging to an old Game Boy as she said it. "But I dunno where the 'reeps are..."

"Okay, darling, I'll show you some fights. But not too many tonight, okay? If we do too many, then he'll be too strong and win everything too easily, and we don't want that." Her mom grabbed the game from her small hands, sat down on the couch, and pulled the little girl up into her lap. "Okay, let's play Pokémon, shall we?"

Snow giggled and clapped her hands. "Yes, momma! Let's play!" As she would grow up, playing the game would become something she would do on her own, no longer relying on either of her parents to have to play for her, and the more she got into it, the more she connected with them. Instead of board games for family time, they'd play their respective Pokémon games, and have fun while doing it.

In her very first play-through of a copy of HeartGold, she reached the top of Mount Silver, only to find it snowing up there. "Wow, that's cool!" she said, showing her mom. "I didn't know there was snow in this game!"

"Where else do you think you got your name from, silly! What, did you think it snowed around her on the day you were born?" Giving a laugh at the girl, Vriska smiled at her and the game. "That would just be strange." And sitting across from the two of them at the table when that exchange happened, only the largest of grins found its way onto Tavros's lips.

* * *

A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on September 28, 2012.

Well, I would say that's the end of the fic, but that's just the end of the _main storyline_ of Act I. There's more coming at you next week, yo! :)


	6. Act II Part I: Let's Make

**Act II Part I**

_Let's Make Magic_

Their meeting was by complete accident, with a busy Jade running down a city street trying to make it to some unknown location when she ran straight into a guy who looked no older than her, who was running in the opposite direction. The very second she hit him, she forgot all about where she was headed, and instead decided to focus on this strange man that she had slammed into, trying to apologize to him for what she did.

"Listen here," he said when she got a loud "sorry!" out to him, "I don't need you apologizing to me. It's as much my own fault as it is yours, so I'll say sorry first. This is the one time that the 'ladies first' rule doesn't apply." The way he spoke, with a calm voice and a smile on his lips, attracted Jade to him, and made her want to know more.

And more she got, as they began to speak more and more, pushing their accidental meeting behind them with every word. "My name's Jade," she told him at some point, as they attempted to locate somewhere to sit and continue on with their conversation. "I'm not really that interesting, but I guess I like animals and music and talking to people!"

"You sound more interesting than me, Jade. I like music too, but I'm also into games and I guess you could call me an amateur magician. My friends do." He chuckled, before thinking for a moment, adding, "The name's John, by the way. John Egbert."

"Well, mister Egbert, I'd like to see a magic trick, if you can do any." He took that as a challenge, pulling out a deck of cards and having her pick one and study it before taking it back. When he retrieved it from the deck again, it had his phone number written across its front. "That's pretty cool, actually. Would you mind showing me more sometime?"

The enthusiastic nod he gave made her grin. "Of course I will. It's in the cards, after all. They want us to see each other again, and I wouldn't tempt their rage." That wasn't the end of their discussion, which involved jumping from many subjects, bringing them closer and closer with every shared word. It eventually ended when Jade remembered where she was supposed to be going when she had hit him, and she left in a hurry, but not without making plans for an informal date of sorts.

That "date" turned into a real one, which became two, which spiraled into a romance that she never thought she would have. After all, no guy ever seemed to want to be with someone as strange as her; they always passed her by and went after girls with talents that she definitely didn't possess. But John was different, and he made it a point to prove that as often as he could. The magic tricks, which were cute at first, eventually faded when they got serious, and by the time that everyone knew they were together, it had been months since he had performed anything. He didn't feel that they were appropriate for a relationship like theirs, and she agreed.

The first people to find out about what was going on were two of John's friends, one of which lived in the same apartment building as him, the other of which was someone who lived on the other side of town. As this discovery happened while Jade was beginning to move her things into John's place, the friend in the building found out first, and the news quickly spread to the other friend. A confrontation occurred one of the days when Jade was bringing boxes of clothes up, and it involved her getting cornered by a dark-haired man and a blonde accomplice.

"You're Egbert's girl, huh?" one of them, the one with the dark hair, asked, at which she gulped and nodded. "You seem nice enough. How long have you been together?"

"Long enough for me to be moving in with him, I guess. Half a year, maybe?" She shrugged. "Why does it matter to you two, anyway? You his brothers or something? I wasn't told that he had brothers, so..."

The blonde laughed. "No, but we're his bros. Gotta keep him clean of cheap, trashy whores and the like. You don't look like you're bad, though, so you're good to go."

"Um, whores? Is there something about John that I don't know?"

"No, the one who goes after the whores is Dave." A finger was pointed at the blonde. "I figured John would be smart enough to date a sensible woman. It's a pleasure to get to meet you, John's lady friend. I'm Karkat." This time, he stuck his whole hand out, at her, before pulling it away because both of her hands were full. "One of these days, you and him need to hang with my lady and me, and definitely not Dave."

While the blonde stood in a stunned silence, Jade smiled. "Oh, aren't you both polite and really scary at the same time, Karkat! I don't know if you knew this, but my name's Jade, and I swear I am not a trashy whore."

"I believe you, and I bet John does too. You seem nice, so there aren't any problems here that I see." Karkat took a step back and gave a bow. "Sorry to be leaving your presence, but I've left my dear Terezi out in the car, and if she yells at me for it, I might lose my fucking mind." With that he was gone, leaving Jade and her arms full of boxes alone with Dave, who was just staring at her.

"Excuse me, but do you have a problem with me? You aren't saying much, what you have said kind of hurts, and you're looking at me weird..."

"What? No, no problems here. Just thinking. I'm kind of a fun guy, and you and John are always welcome to chill with me. He knows this. Just...if you and him do anything, please don't involve me. The last time I babysat, bad things happened." He put a pair of sunglasses on over his dark eyes and smiled. "One more thing, if you order pizza, expect me at the door. People here are stupid and always deliver it to me."

He was gone before she could say a word about any of that, leaving her shaking her head in confusion as to why a guy like John would have such interesting friends, when he was so down-to-earth. She asked him the next chance she got, and his response was to laugh and tell her that they were from a dark time in his life, but they were greater than they seemed.

She believed him, but was very wary with letting them know anything about their personal lives, due to the fear that had overcome her when they had cornered her that day. It took a lot of bravery to allow John to tell either of them about things that happened: they didn't know of their engagement until almost a month after it happened, and they were the last to know of any wedding plans.

It was at about the same time that they were planning their dream wedding that they made two friends that would stick with them forever. It was a bright summer day, and they were walking home from the park, when they saw two people enter the apartment building that they had never seen before. "Hey, excuse me, but are you new?" John asked them, being polite. There was a male and a female, both of which looked at him like he was crazy. "New here, I mean. We live one floor from the top."

"Third floor," the woman, an obviously unnatural blonde, said in response, grabbing her male companion's hand, "and we don't need whatever you're trying to sell us."

"We're not selling anything." Jade would have attached the word "bitch" to the end of that, but she figured that being nice in this situation was best. "We're just trying to be polite. Sorry for even trying to be decent neighbors."

That statement broke the ice, it seemed, because the blonde turned and looked at both of them. "I don't know, you look like you're fishy people. Trying to preach at us, maybe? Ain't happening. Come on, Tavros, let's go make sure our stuff is still upstairs." They disappeared then, but the incident stuck with John and Jade both, leading them to properly introduce themselves a few weeks later, but fading apart until circumstance brought them back together nearly a year later.

The events of that year in-between the meetings were slightly important to creating that particular circumstance, however. For starters, they were married within that year, at a grand ceremony that everyone who attended truly enjoyed. It wasn't exactly big, but it was fancy, and it was something that was remembered through pictures for the rest of their lives. There was also their honeymoon, which was lovely and wonderful and took place on a beach that they would probably never go back to again, just to preserve the memories. And then, there was the getting into the daily grind that was known as the married life.

As all married couples do, they would fight. Nothing major, always about who needed to do what or what was better. There was one incident, though, that went above and beyond all of their previous fights, and it began when John noticed a little note that Jade had put on the table, one that listed out things that needed to be done. "Hey, nice choice of color," he said, picking up the piece of paper and flicking it a few times. "Blue's definitely the best color there is."

Jade looked up at him from where she was sitting on their couch. "Excuse me, but it's not. I only used it because I couldn't find my green pen, which, by the way, writes in the best color."

"No, your pen writes in green, and I'm pretty sure I just said that blue is the best, so you must be wrong." He laughed and put the note back down, before choosing to sit next to her, attempting to drape his arm over her shoulder, but she pushed it away. "What's up? Why can't I cuddle with my beautiful wife? Something wrong?"

"I don't want a dirty liar touching me like that." She jumped up and headed straight for the door, with him following her, asking what had gotten into her. "You're lying! Green is the best!"

"Is that what this is about? Jade, it's just a color. Calm down."

She shook her head in defiance and opened the door, nearly whacking him with it. "I'm leaving, you ignorant fool. If you can't see that my favorite color is best, then you don't deserve to have me around." Stepping outside of the apartment, she slammed the door shut, leaving John standing on the other side, completely in shock at her behavior.

By the time he opened the door to chase her, she was down two floors, knocking on the door to an apartment whose occupants she sort of knew. "Hello?" a female voice asked, as the door opened, revealing the unnatural blonde hair of Vriska. "Oh, it's you. What do you want?"

"Which color's better, blue or green?" Jade crossed her arms over her chest and waited for an answer, but all she got was a wide-eyed response. "Well? Which is it?"

"I'm scared to answer, because you seem like you're a bit crazy, and if you're crazy I don't want to answer wrong. The last thing I want to have to do is hurt you for attacking me."

Jade was going to tell Vriska to answer the question, but John had gotten to her by then. "Jade!" he shouted, tackling her. "What the hell has gotten into you? You're normally calm and collected and nothing like this!"

"Yeah, well, I'm passionate about my favorite fucking color!" She glared at Vriska, who was still staring at her with her eyes wide open. "Now answer! Blue or green?"

"Blue! Now leave me alone, because I don't want to be asked anything else!" The blonde closed her door, leaving John and Jade alone in the hall area. As John reached for her arm to grab it, she smacked him away, storming back up the stairs. With her gone, he took the initiative to once again knock on the apartment door. "I said I don't wanna...oh. It's you."

"Sorry about her. She's being weird for some reason, and I don't know why." He sighed, hoping that his apology would work.

It did, as Vriska opened the door a bit more. "Women do that sometimes. I would have figured you'd know that, since you live with her and everything. If Tavros was here, I'd have him vouch for me that I can be a lot worse."

"I'll take your word for it, but Jade has never been like this. Ever. She whines sometimes, but she doesn't lose her mind and yell at me...I wonder if something's wrong." As he said that, he noticed that Vriska was playfully rolling her eyes and shrugging. "What, do you think this is funny?"

"No, I don't. I'm just thinking about all the things I know that make a woman swing like that, and I'm wondering if there's something you're missing. Go to her. Ask her how she is. Make her feel loved. That's what I'd want if I was in the situation I'm thinking she's in."

The words sounded cryptic to John, but he thanked Vriska for her advice and made his way back upstairs, where he tried to enter his and Jade's apartment—just to find that the door was latched closed. He knocked a few times, saying "Let me in, Jade. This isn't funny."

"Sorry, only beings who like the color green are allowed in. I'd suggest finding a room somewhere, because you're not welcome here."

"First of all, this is stupid. Secondly, all my stuff's in there so I would need to come in to get it. And third thing, this is not the way you treat the man you love! Now let me in before I destroy your green pen, wherever it is." He was trying not to be angry, but it was showing. "Jade, I'm warning you. Let me in or it's gone."

She tapped her fingers on the inside of the door, which let him know that she was right there and being belligerent. "Sorry, but those of us in here want nothing to do with you and your hating personality. Please come back when you've seen the error of your ways."

Two things about what she said stood out to him. "There is no error here! This is just you being stupid...and since when is there more than just you in there?"

"I am not being st—" She abruptly stopped in the middle of her word, unlocking the door and opening it for him to come in. When he did, she was curled up into a ball on the floor, a frown on her face and tears in her eyes.

"Jade? What is going on here? What am I missing?"

She sniffled, before wiping a tear that had fallen down her cheek away. "I'm sorry about what I just did. I wasn't thinking straight at all there, going off on you like that. Blue's just as good of a color as green is, and I should have realized that sooner. Forgive me?"

"Yes, I forgive you, but," he got down on the floor and curled up next to her, "what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

As he watched, she brought her hands together and laced her fingers between each other, sighing as she did so, before pulling her arms close to her chest. "Promise me you won't freak out if I tell you, okay?"

"Swear on my life, Jade. I wouldn't get mad about anything, unless you're telling me that you've been cheating on me with Dave or something, and then I might lose it. But you're not going to tell me that, right?"

"Of course not! I'm just, uh, not sure you want to hear this." She sighed again, as he told her that yes, he did want to hear it, whatever it was. "John, listen to me. You do not want to hear this."

He came a little bit closer to her. "Oh yeah? What is it, and I'll be the judge of that."

"Okay, but you asked for it." After taking a deep breath, she began to explain rather quickly: "Well you see, I think something went wrong the last time we, um, played around. And by something, I mean I'm convinced that the condom didn't work." He let out a little gasp then, but she didn't seem to notice it, instead choosing to look down at her hands. "I'm sure you know where this is going, but let me finish. So I noticed that I've been very weird lately, doing strange things and acting different and, yeah, there have been some changes when it comes to, er, feminine things, but I'm not completely certain yet but unless something weird is happening then I am probably absolutely positively having your baby, John."

No words could come out when he tried to speak, and the only sound was a high-pitched squeal that hurt their ears. He moved close enough to her so that he could wrap his arms around her and squeeze her into a big hug, which she tried to squirm out of. "You're taking this a lot better than I figured you would..."

"Jade, do you know what this means? This means that we're going to be parents! Isn't that just the most exciting thing in the world? Why would I take this badly? This is great!" He let go of her and got to his feet, before dashing for the phone. "I've got to tell my dad about this! He'll be so proud!"

"No! You can't tell him, not until we know for sure, and then you can tell him all you want." She got up as well, walking over to him and taking the phone from his shaking hands. "Just do that for me, okay? Keep this a secret until we know it's for real."

Naturally, he told everyone he could the second she wasn't around to stop him, which was a terrible idea, he later realized, when he had to tell everyone that something happened and that no, they wouldn't be having a baby, not then. He hadn't lied when he first told everyone, because he was staring at the small but real picture of the tiny child that he and Jade were having when he made all his calls, but the next time that there should have been pictures, there was no child to be found, leaving him with the job of explaining to everyone that something had happened.

Everyone believed him and expressed great condolences, but the second time he had to make those calls, they were even less believing, and the third time the news was received with a lack of belief from all except a few people who knew John would never lie about anything this big. The way his voice wavered and cracked as he told everyone that, for the third time, there was a problem and there was going to be no Egbert baby pretty much proved that he was speaking the truth, and anyone who had the opportunity to see Jade in the weeks after he said it was treated to a first-hand example of a mother who had lost her child to the cruelty of life.

It was during this time that the two of them began to become close friends with the couple living in an apartment a few floors down, because they were there and caring throughout all of it. Any time they would run across each other, Tavros and Vriska both would hug Jade and be very friendly with John, which made them the perfect candidates to be the first to learn that, for the fourth (and, as Jade said, the last) time, they were going to be trying their hand at having a baby. It went over very well with them, but when told to keep quiet until they knew this one was going to make it, they couldn't do it, spilling the news to Dave, who, predictably, told everyone he knew that also knew John or Jade.

Thankfully, everything went better on the fourth time than the previous three, and there was no need to have to retract the statements that were made. That didn't mean that things were perfect, though, as made apparent by Jade's refusal to leave the confines of the apartment unless she absolutely needed to. This led to many visits by friends, not all of which were handled very well. On one occasion, Dave came over while John wasn't around, but he wasn't there for his best friend: he was there to tell Jade a joke he had heard, just to cheer her up and make her laugh.

"I don't need your jokes," she told him, trying to get him to leave, but he was insistent on telling her whatever it was. "No, don't want to hear it. Why can't you leave me alone?"

"Because John told me to come spend time with you since he can't right now. You've been locked away long enough, miss future mom. It's time for you to experience my companionship, and you're gonna get it through my joke. Now sit down and listen." She sighed, taking a seat on the floor where she was able to sprawl out. "Good. Now hear this. What's worse than ten babies nailed to a tree?"

"What kind of question is that? Why are you nailing babies to a tree? That's terrible! Why are yo-" He cut her off with a stern re-asking of his question, to which she answered that she didn't know what was worse.

"You don't know? Easy. One baby nailed to ten trees." While he smiled and was proud of himself for getting the joke out without bursting into laughter, Jade was having to fight back tears due to the mere implication of the poor baby in the "joke" being ripped apart. He took notice of her tears after a few minutes. "Oh, bad topic, huh? You don't like talking about babies being dead. Kind of forgot about that. Sorry."

He slunk out of the apartment then, not even bothering to comfort Jade in the slightest. She remained on the floor in a crying heap until John came home from his long day at work. Unlike the blonde, John actually cared and was bothered by Jade's crying, and he dropped down on the floor to lay next to her. "What's wrong, babe? What's making you cry?"

"Dave was in here," she said as she bawled her eyes out, "and he told me the most terrible joke ever. How dare he joke about dead babies with me? Doesn't he realize that I have dealt enough with dead...babies..." Her voice became drowned out by her crying, and John wasn't sure what to do in order to cheer her up, aside from something she would most likely hate—tickling her.

His hand answered his question before it even became a question, as he started to reach over to her. "It's okay, Jade, he was just being a jerk, he didn't mean anything by it. Don't cry, because your crying makes the tickle monster want to play."

"You wouldn't dare," she coughed out, still crying. "I hate it when you tickle me."

"I would dare, and I'm going to do it. I'm going to tickle you." The moment his fingers touched her side she started whacking in his direction, smacking his chest a few times. "Careful, because the monster will tickle you more if you fight!"

The tears stopped and she leaned up a little to glare at him. "We aren't doing this. No tickling me, or you will be sleeping on the couch tonight. And I might not even let you back into the bed. Make your move, John. I dare you."

"There's only one choice here, and you know it." She honestly thought that her threat would have deterred him from tickling her, but no sooner than she had given a sigh of relief was he tickling her side again, causing her to scream. "Yeah, that's right, the tickle monster is here and he's going to tickle you forever."

"If you even dare tickle me more than this I will forbid you from ever sharing our bed again! Stop this right now!" She kicked at him and smacked him more, but nothing seemed to slow his tickling, not even when she smacked his glasses off of his face. "John, I mean it, stop tickling me! I don't like it at all, and I don't think that your little girl likes it either!" The mere mention of their unborn child made him pull his hand away and apologize for even starting a lopsided tickle fight. "You better be sorry, or else she's going to be born pissed at you."

"Come on, it's not like she knows what's going on...don't be saying things like that." In an attempt to make his apology more believable, he snuggled up close to Jade, planting kisses on her face that she tried to get away from. "Look, the tickle monster's gone, and I'm here with you. Is everything better now?"

"No, because you tickled me when I didn't want it, but I'd consider this a start."

He laughed and kissed her more for a few minutes, happy to be up against her, even if they were on the floor. Then he let it sink in that they were _on the floor_. "Um, Jade? Mind if we go lay somewhere else? This is nice and all, but..."

"Someone could just walk in if we're here. I get it." She sat up and, after he got to his feet and helped her to hers, dragged him down the hall into the nursery that they had set up, with its green walls with blue flowers all over them. "Is this better for you?"

"I was thinking more of our own room, but I'm sure you've got a reason for bringing me in here and not there. What's up?" He sat in the chair in the corner, sinking down into it while Jade once again chose the floor for a seat.

"What's up? Nothing much, just the fact that this is a thing that's happening, and I'm really excited about it, and I think it's great that we're this prepared and we've still got time left and I don't know but the idea of actually legitimately becoming parents sounds so great right now and..." Jade rambled on and on, her voice becoming higher with every added thought. The excitement she expressed at that moment was something that stuck with John for years, but most especially when he got to hold their daughter, his little Casey, for the first time. That particular event sparked a rise of similar excitement in him, to the point that he was almost crying and just babbling at her and her little smile and tiny face and everything.

There was a flip side to that excitement, though, and that was the heartbreaking feelings they had felt on the three previous occasions, where instead of a child to hold and love there was just a hole and unanswered questions. Because of knowing both the highs and the lows, they were able to comfort Vriska and Tavros when they lost their first child, and they were more than willing to be around when it came time for their second one. That just made it all the more fitting that little Snow was born on a day marred by an incident involving John and Jade.

* * *

"Are you sure you guys can watch her for us? If you can't, we can take her with, but I'd really rather not have her out in this storm..." Vriska was snuggling Snow close to her, reluctant to let her go, regardless of what she had just said. "The last thing I want is something to happen to her."

With a big smile, Jade nodded and reached out to take the little girl. "We're responsible, and we can handle her. For one, we aren't Dave, and for two, we've raised our own before. You've got to take this step and leave her with us. Trust me, it'll be okay."

"But what if Casey doesn't like her? I don't want to leave my baby here if Casey isn't going to be nice." Even though she was still extremely reluctant to do it, she carefully handed the child to Jade, who almost immediately put her down on the blanket that covered the floor. "Hey wait, I don't think she should be down there! What if someone steps on her?"

From where he was standing, John gave a sigh and an eyeroll. "No one will step on her. Jade's just making Snow available for Casey." He looked down at the black-haired girl who was clinging to his leg. "Go on, go play with Snow."

"I'm really not sure I like this," Vriska said, starting to bend down to pick up Snow, but Casey got to her first, her hands over her mouth as she mumbled things that no one could hear. "Okay, I'll let them play. But if Snow gets hurt, I'm going to be mad."

"She won't get hurt! Casey is gentle and kind and she knows that real babies are nothing like her stuffed animal ones!" Jade got down so she was sitting next to the two girls on the blanket, and she propped Snow up in a sitting position. "Now watch as they play nicely."

No definition of "playing nicely" that they were aware of involved Casey grabbing a clump of Snow's hair and tugging at it, causing the baby to cry while she just looked innocently at her parents and said, "Snow baby. I like baby."

Vriska nearly lunged at the little girl, but was restrained at the last moment by Tavros, who was attempting to stay calm and calm her down as well. "She's going to be fine. Now let's go and leave them alone, because if we stay here, you're probably going to hurt Snow more than Casey can."

"I don't think you understand! She's hurting my baby!"

"No, I do understand, but we don't have time to be dealing with this. She will be fine here, so we're leaving. Bye, guys, and thanks for watching her for us." With one last grumble about how she was _not_ going to be fine, they both left.

"Now, now, Casey, no pulling hair. If she's bald when her parents get back they're going to be very, very mad." John joined the three of them on the floor, sitting right next to Jade, who nudged him a bit with her shoulder. "Now let's be nice to the baby, especially since we're just borrowing her."

Casey let go of Snow's hair and climbed into her parents' laps, pretending to purr as she did so. "Want Snow baby. I like baby."

"Oh, you like her? Maybe we can talk her parents into letting us borrow her more then, because she's a real cutie." Jade pulled her off the blanket and into her arms, where she smiled down at the tearful child. "Maybe she'll be like a sister of sorts to you. Do you like that idea, Casey?"

"No, I like baby. Not sister." The girl poked Snow's back with one of her toes. "That Snow. Snow not sister. Snow baby."

"Yeah, Snow's a baby, and she isn't your sister. But she can be like one. Is that okay?" The little girl nodded when John said that, and he was thankful that he didn't have to argue anything beyond that, especially with a nearly three-year-old girl who wouldn't even begin to understand the fact that Snow was as close to as sister as she was going to ever get.

* * *

A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr October 11th, 2012.

And here we are with the second act of the story, one that focuses on John and Jade! :D


	7. Act II Part II

**Act II Part II**

_Let's Make Plans_

As it turned out, John's thoughts about never giving Casey a little sibling were wrongly placed, because no sooner than the front door closed and latched did Jade turn to him and sweetly smile. "It's nice having a baby in here with us," she said, playing with Snow a bit. "Kind of a bit of preparation, maybe."

"Preparation? For what?" He looked at her, noticing the shine in her eyes and how genuinely happy she seemed to be. "This babysitting thing isn't going to be a full time job, is it?"

"It might be, but that's not what I'm meaning. You remember how I was gone yesterday when you got home? Where did you think I was?" He shrugged, because he didn't really know how to answer that. "John, you're so difficult! Go get my purse. It's in there."

Not understanding what she was implying, he got up, Casey coming with, and walked over to the shelf where Jade's purse was. "Why can't you just tell me what I'm getting?"

"If I tell you, you won't believe it!" She actually ended up being correct about that, because when John's fingers brushed against the glossy cover of a picture, he let out a surprised yelp, and when he actually grabbed it and pulled it from the purse, getting to look at it, he nearly burst into tears to join his excited babbling.

"Daddy, what's wrong?" Casey asked, tugging at John's leg. He scooped her up and showed her the picture—but she didn't quite understand. "Peanut. That's a peanut."

"Casey, sweetie, it's not a peanut. It's a baby."

The little girl looked from the picture to Snow, who was gurgling and kicking away as Jade played with her. "No, that's a peanut. Snow baby. Silly daddy."

"How do you even know what a peanut looks like? Casey, I'm telling you, that's a baby. It's mommy and daddy's baby." The picture went back into the purse and John and Casey returned to the floor to be with Jade. "And we want that baby."

"Was Casey peanut baby?" the girl asked, giving her dad a wide-eyed look where he could see every bit of glimmer in her green eyes. "Where peanut baby at? I no see peanut baby."

"I won't answer that until you speaking in correct sentences, Casey. Just because Snow's here doesn't mean you get to act like you're not smart." Jade glanced at John, her stare scolding him for letting Casey speak incorrectly for as long as she had been.

After whining for a few seconds, the little girl complied with her mother's word. "Was Casey a peanut baby? Where is the peanut baby? I don't see it."

"Thank you, sweetie. Yes, you were a peanut baby once, and you were a perfect little peanut. And this one is somewhere safe and will be for a long time. You'll know where it is when it's ready."

"Is it at the store? I wanna see the peanut baby, mommy." Casey batted her eyelashes and tried to get her way through being cute. "Please and thank you!"

Even though her behavior really was adorable, Jade had to shoot her down. "You can't see the baby, not yet. It's not at the store, and we can't go somewhere to buy it. It's living inside of me right now, growing bigger and bigger every day."

"You ate the baby?" The little girl's eyes widened even more and she looked worriedly between her mom and Snow, who was still kicking her legs. "Don't eat Snow too! Snow has a nice mommy and daddy. You can't eat her."

"I didn't eat the baby, Casey! That's where babies come from!" Jade sighed, not wanting to have to explain the entire thing to someone who would never remember it. "Besides, the peanut baby will probably stay a peanut baby for all of its life..."

Casey tilted her head. "I don't get it."

"You'll get it someday, okay?" John wrapped his arms tight around Casey and snuggled with her, making her squeal with excitement. "For now, let's just worry about watching Snow for her parents, and let's not talk more about the peanut baby."

"Okay, daddy. We can play." She squirmed out of his arms and flopped on the floor next to Snow, flailing her arms and legs around like the baby was. "I'm being baby Snow! Love me, love me!" Her antics made her parents both laugh, and that was the way the next few hours went, with Casey trying to be just like Snow but failing, causing her parents to laugh at her behavior.

This changed when they were all sitting on the couch, Snow cradled in Jade's arms, Casey watching over her and trying to play peek-a-boo, but hitting John every time she moved her hands. "You girls play together so well," he remarked, looking at them with a smile on his face. "It's like she's family, and you know what family does?"

"Live together?" the little girl replied, squealing a bit at the idea.

"No, they kiss. Why don't you go ahead and kiss Snow's cheek? We won't tell her mommy and daddy you did it." It sounded like a great idea, and very innocent at that, but there was always a catch, and this one would destroy the peaceful afternoon they'd been having.

Everything happened at once: right as Casey leaned in to kiss Snow, the baby started coughing and spit up in Casey's face, causing her to scream, which made Snow cry. And it was then that the front door opened and Vriska and Tavros came in, greeted by two children making altogether way too much noise. "What happened while we were gone?" Tavros asked, taking Snow from Jade's arms. "Did they fight? Damn it, Vriska, we should have just brought her with us. They wouldn't have judged us for it."

"No, no, they didn't fight. Casey loved playing with Snow, but then your daughter there just spit up, and Casey's face was her target." As Jade explained that, John took the crying Casey out of the room to clean her up. "Other than that incident, everything was fine. How did things go with you two?"

They looked between each other, Vriska grumbling and Tavros biting his lip to avoid giving an answer. It took Jade asking again for Vriska to pull a folded-up picture from her pocket. "Went about as well as we thought it would. There's, for sure, a fucking monster in there. Again."

"Oh, that's great!" Jade got up from her chair and snagged the picture from Vriska's hand, unfolding it to see what it was—and was greeted with an image much like the one that John had pulled from her purse hours before. "Wow, it's bigger than I was expecting...what, is it going to be born right at Snow's birthday?"

"They think it'll be around then, yeah." Vriska grumbled some more, before sighing. "I don't want it. I didn't want Snow. Fuck, I didn't even want the one we killed. I hate kids."

"Then why do you keep having them?" Jade was in the middle of asking that when Dave came strolling into the apartment, a case of beer in his hands. She finished her question before looking at him with raised eyebrows. "Um, Dave? What are you doing here?"

He lifted the case up to show everyone what it was. "I've come for the party."

"What party?" Jade's eyebrows raised a bit higher, just waiting for an answer. Meanwhile, Tavros, who had groaned the second he heard Dave mention a party, tried to leave the place without anyone noticing, but Vriska grabbed his arm and forced him to stay.

"What party," Dave repeated. "Oh, just something that's known as the 'god fucking damn are you even capable of using protection' party. It's also known as the 'wrap your willy' party, the 'put it away' party, and, my favorite, the 'if you're going to be naked in bed together can you please keep a blanket between you because you've already got one kid' party." He then dropped the case of beer on the floor and gave a slow clap. "Congrats, dude. How are you going to make a minimum wage job support two kids?"

"I'll make it work," Tavros said, looking down at Snow as he spoke. "It's my fault that Vriska's pregnant again, and I'm going to make sure that I take care of her, and Snow, and the new kid. I will do it. I swear."

Dave snorted, but didn't say anything else on the subject. "Want a drink, anyone?" he asked, squatting down to open the case and pull out a couple cans. "Come on, I spent a whole ten dollars on this stuff." He popped open a can and drank from it, smacking his lips when he was done. "Mmmm, piss flavor."

For reasons everyone knew and understood, Vriska turned down the offer, and for reasons that only she and John knew, so did Jade. "I'll take one, since you did get them because of me." Tavros handed Snow over to Vriska and took a can from Dave. "Which, in hindsight, it was a bad idea to tell you first about this. Should have known you'd pull something like this."

"You know it." Dave chuckled, taking another drink, before asking, "Where's John? He at work or something? He's normally out here being a dweeb by now."

"He's cleaning Casey up right now, but knowing him, he's probably in the middle of telling her a long story or something." Jade gave an awkward laugh, because she was thankful that John wasn't there for all of what had happened. The last thing she wanted was for him, or even Casey, to spill her news, because she remembered all the fuss about her previous pregnancies and subsequent miscarriages, and she had no idea if that was the face to befall this one. For her sake, she hoped this one would get far enough to be considered safe in her mind, and then she could share. Otherwise, it would just be a secret that only her family knew.

But, like all the previous times, John went and messed her plans up. When he and Casey came back and he saw Vriska standing there, looking displeased with the world, his face lit up. "Hey! How'd it go? Did your fears come true? Is there really another bun in your oven?" She begrudgingly nodded, and John took that as a cue to look happily at Jade. "You know what that means, sweetie? You two can go on shopping trips and compare notes and-"

"Wait wait wait," Vriska interrupted, giving Jade a confused look. "Is he implying what I think he's implying? Or is he just being strange like normal?"

There was a moment of debating whether or not she was going to lie about it, but, in the end, Jade realized that lying would get her nowhere except maybe in trouble with her friends. "He's implying what you think he's implying."

"Oh, sweet! I could use a shopping buddy this time around, since Tavros hates the idea so much. You're a great friend, Jade, and I'm glad I've got you here for me." It was strange, she thought, that Vriska didn't sound like she was talking about what was going on. "You look confused. Is something wrong?"

"No...nothing's wrong." There was the lie she was so afraid of making, but it was an innocent lie, not a big one like she was tempted to make previously.

"Hey, John, want something to drink?" Dave asked, pulling another couple beers from his case. "I brought drinks for the party, but the ladies aren't biting. You in?"

He excitedly nodded, and skillfully caught the drink when it was thrown at him. "What's the party for? Is it something good?"

"No, but I've just decided that this party is too lame for me, so how about this. I reserve us somewhere to have a real party, and we do that sometime soon. Sound good?" No one argued against it, even if Tavros seemed really displeased that there was still talk of a party that was painting him in a negative light. "Okay, sweet. I'm leaving these drinks here, and I'll catch you all later." He stood up, gave everyone a wave, and walked out the room, before coming back seconds later to snag a few more cans, and then he was gone.

"Dave's strange, but I like him. He's a good friend." John opened his drink, sat on the couch, and took a sip, only to spit it out onto the back of Casey's head. She started screaming and throwing a fit, which, naturally, made Snow start whining.

"We're gonna go home, I guess," Vriska said, trying to keep the little girl from getting any louder than she was. "Thanks for watching her for us, but now she gets to spend time with her parents again." Jade told her it was really no problem, and they left, closing the apartment door behind them and leaving the dark-haired woman in a room with a screaming Casey and a frantically trying to calm her John.

Instead of trying to help the situation at all, she walked to her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed...just to realize that she still had the picture that belonged to Vriska in her hand. She sighed, falling backwards and hoping that everything would go right over the next little bit, not just for her and her family, but for her friends as well.

She'd like to be able to plan the future for once.

* * *

A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on November 15th, 2012.


	8. Act II Part III

**Act II Part III**

_Let's Make Mistakes_

Being invited to a party for adults was one thing. The invitations to those were actually fairly normal, with being friends with Dave and all. But being invited to one that was announced on the back of coupons to the local kids' arcade was definitely out of the ordinary, although not completely unexpected. After all, they _were _friends with Dave. So when the coupons were slid under their door, John and Jade knew that they just had to go to this party, simply because the idea of a bunch of adults at Chuck E. Cheese's was something they wanted to be part of.

Oh, and also that the invitation was titled "reasons why a CERTAIN SOMEONE needs to learn how to wrap his junk." That was the other factor in the decision, as John reminded Jade every single time she questioned why they were actually going to go to the thing. "You know you want to be there when Dave makes a total fool of not only himself, but Tavros and Vriska too," he said, looking over the invitation for the millionth time. "That's why I want to be there."

"John, you change your reason for wanting to be there every time we talk about this." Jade sighed, snatching the paper from his hands. "I'm kind of dreading going, though. What if Dave, being the insensitive dick he is, decides to poke some fun at us? I'm not ready for him to be making more dead baby jokes, not after...that."

John didn't have to ask what Jade meant by what she said. He knew she was referring to the loss of yet another child, one that they had truly hoped to get to have, and he also knew that making her talk about it was like stabbing her through the chest. She was suffering because of it, because she had hoped she wouldn't lose it like she had lost so many before, and yet she did. "If you want, me and Casey can go alone," he offered, to which she shook her head. "What, you actually want to go?"

"Of course I want to go. Like you've said many times, I want to see all the fools being made. I just wish that I could prevent them from bringing up things I'd rather not talk about." Before she said anything else, she took a deep breath. "But, Dave's been planning this party for a while, and I'm sure he's got so many things planned, he'll have no time to even bring it up. So why hide from something that's not going to happen?"

"That's the spirit, Jade! Now go on and get ready, since this thing is in like an hour, and you know how it's going to go. We'll be getting ready to leave, and Tavros is going to come up here begging us for a ride, and we're going to have to wait on them, and then we'll be late." Jade laughed at John's made-up scenario, but the truth was that he was completely correct about all of it.

That led to there being four adults and two kids in the van on the way to Chuck E. Cheese's, and those same six people rushing inside some ten minutes after they should have been there. "Oh, you guys embarrassed to be here?" Dave jokingly asked once he got the chance, after a round of apologies from the four adults. "No, no, don't be. I'm not going to do or say anything to two of these lovely people who have gathered here today that will make you guys blush in shame."

"You better not," Jade muttered under her breath, while John thanked the blond for being so kind to them. He just gave them one of his trademark stoic coolguy faces, ruffled Casey's hair a bit, and put his focus completely on the other couple they had come in with.

"However, there are two of them that are fair game, and I will assure you that this party, held to honor the fact that they seriously could not manage to do anything right in the bedroom, will consist of a lot of teasing and making fun of them." Dave actually lifted his sunglasses off of his eyes and visibly winked at Tavros and Vriska, who looked between themselves with extremely worried expressions. "Oh, don't seem so shocked. I warned you. This 'wrap-your-willy-or-so-help-me' party will be the best experience of your lives."

Tavros raised his eyebrows at the assertion, but chose not to argue about it. Vriska, on the other hand, was raring to argue each and every thing about the situation, her naturally argumentative self even more on edge thanks to her elevated hormonal state. "You dare make this uncomfortable for us, and I will flatten you," she hissed between her teeth, rubbing her very large stomach as a reinforcement of the threat. "And then I will have Tavros kick you. And then I'll flatten you again."

"Whoa, no need to get hostile with me. I took the time to throw this party for you, and here you are, threatening me. Just take a seat, Serket, and stop looking at me like you're really going to use _me_ as that seat." She grumbled a bunch before sitting in one of the nearby chairs, the carseat that held Snow being set on the chair next to hers. "Okay, wonderful. Placated the pregnant woman. That was step one. Step two, break out the balloons."

He gave a tiny nod over to one of the ladies standing at the ticket counter, who flipped a switch on the wall behind her. The switch caused a whole bunch of balloons to descend from the ceiling, which then caused everyone there for the party (aside from the workers, that was everyone there) to scream. But it wasn't the balloons themselves that were earning screaming—mixed amongst the colorful balloons were carefully blown up and tied condoms that Dave had obviously put there as a hint to the most important guest.

Said important guest was not too pleased at all with the twist. "Now I understand why you rented this whole place out for this party," he said through clenched teeth, popping one of the condoms with his fingernails. "Letting these things descend on unprepared kids and parents would not be a smart move on your part. Fuck, letting them descend on us wasn't smart either."

"I wasn't sure if you knew what one looked like or not, honestly." Dave kicked a couple of the balloons around, nearly hitting Casey, who was chasing them around, as he did. "So I figured, hey, why not make this a learning experience?"

They bickered on, back and forth, for what seemed like hours, so the rest of the guests took that as a cue to start doing things on their own. "Hey, Jade, let's keep Casey away from the balloons _and_ the play area, okay?" There was a hint of worry in John's voice as he said that, which caused Jade to look at him with a questioning glance. "One, I don't want her asking things about the 'weird' balloons. Two, the play area here is scary and I'd rather her not get hurt inside of it. What if she did? Who would we send to rescue her?"

"The first reason is good, but the second one? She'd be fine in there, and if she somehow did get stuck, we'd have to send another kid in after her."

"Where are we going to get another kid old enough to understand the mission?"

With a no-nonsense feel to her movement, Jade pointed to one of the tables, where she had seen other children sitting when they had arrived. When John looked over to where she was pointing, his eyes were met with the angriest glare he had ever encountered. Except, of course, he was quite used to said glare. "Oh, Karkat's here! Cool!"

"What? Karkat?" Calculations started going off in Jade's head. If Karkat was sitting at that table, then she must have pointed at the wrong one. She knew Karkat. She knew him fairly well. And she knew that him and Terezi, the love of his life, definitely did not have any children, especially ones that had looked to be around Casey's age. She looked for herself, and sure enough, the dark-haired Karkat was sitting at that table, Terezi at his side, and there were two kids with them. "But how? Why? This makes no sense!"

John shrugged, saying something along the lines of "Just go with it" before joining his friend over at his table, leaving Jade to sigh, grab Casey (who was playing with actual balloons, thankfully), and follow suit. By the time she sat down, the little girl on her lap, there was already conversation happening between the three adults that were already there. "You don't just ask someone where the kids they're watching came from, John. That's rude." Terezi spoke with a smile, even though her tone gave away that she was annoyed with John asking about the children that were with them. "Now rephrase what you said, or you're never going to get an answer."

"But that's seriously what I have to ask! I am absolutely sure they're not yours—I would have never heard the end of it otherwise. Where did they come from?"

"Their mom, dumbass."

"Thanks, Karkat. It's not like I haven't taken at least one biology class in my life." Awkwardly laughing, John put an elbow on the table and rested his chin on his hand, looking into Karkat's angered eyes. "I had no idea that kids came from their mothers. Hell, I even _have_ a kid and I didn't know that. Way to go, enlightening me."

Meanwhile, Jade and Casey both were focused on the older of the two strange kids, Jade looking at him to try to judge how old he was, Casey looking because he was someone roughly her size and therefore someone she could play with. "Can I play?" Casey ended up asking, moving her head so that she was looking up at her mom. "I will be a good girl if I can play."

"Hold on, sweetie. Karkat, Terezi, how old is that little boy there?" Distracting them from their argument of sass with John, they both turned to Jade with smiles on their faces. "Oh, bad question?"

"No, not bad. Terezi, do you know how old he is?"

She nodded. "Sure do. Justice there is four. And Cherry over here is a little over a year old, but you didn't ask about her."

"Their names are _Justice_ and _Cherry_? What kind of crack was whoever named them smoking?" John rudely asked, earning himself death glares from everyone else at the table. "Okay, sorry. Whoever named them should be shot."

"How nice. Since I named them, you're implying I should be shot. How nice." Terezi teasingly threw her hair over her shoulder and laughed. "But seriously, my sister let me name them and so I picked the best names I could think of that worked. Justice looks like a law-abiding citizen, and Cherry's cheeks are always red. I may be mostly blind, but I can see that." She blinked a couple times, noticing that Casey had disappeared from Jade's lap. "Where'd Casey go? Did she run off? I thought you never let her get away from you."

"Oh, I don't normally, but she was really wanting to play with Justice, and I decided to let her have her fun...they're just going to go play in the play area. No big deal, right?"

A collective gasp came from Terezi, Karkat, and John. "You didn't!" they all exclaimed, earning attention from other people who had come to the party. "Jade, please tell me that was a joke. There is no way that Casey and that Justice kid are in those tubes of death. No way." John gave his wife a pleading look, one that she was almost sad to see. On the other side of things, Terezi was shaking her head and muttering something akin to "shouldn't have brought him along" and Karkat was trying to comfort her.

"I really don't see what the problem with them being in there is. It's not like there are other kids their age here to hurt them or anything."

"Yes, but there are condoms all over the ground, and who knows if Dave put something in those tubes as well. We need to get them out, before something bad happens." He stood up and walked away from the table, and she sat there for a few seconds more, looking at her friends who were still in their own world, before getting up to follow.

She was roughly halfway over to the play area before something else caught her attention. Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone, she wasn't sure who, getting down on their knees for some reason, and as she turned to look at what it was, a woman happened to run right into her from behind. "Ow!" she exclaimed, getting a good look at the petite blond who was furiously apologizing for her mistake. "No, it's okay, I understand that accidents happen. Who are you and what are you doing here? I don't think we've met."

"No, we haven't. The name's Rose. I'm one of Dave's friends. He invited me because...well, I'm not sure why he invited me, honestly. Aside from the balloons, there's not much here that I understand. Especially not the point of this party, or why it required renting out the entire building." Jade then introduced herself to this new lady, who seemed relieved to have run (quite literally) into one of the nicest people in the room. The introductions were cut short, however, when cheering erupted from where the rest of the people were. "Oh dear. What do you think happened?"

"With it being these people, I have no honest clue. Why don't you go find out, and I'll get back to finding my husband and daughter."

"I'm assuming that they're the ones up in the tubes, based on where we are." Rose pointed up to part of the play area where, sure enough, John was chasing Casey. "How he managed to get up there, I don't know, but I'd be worried about their safety if I were you."

Her jaw dropped a bit, but she didn't say a word. Rose chuckled and walked away to join everyone else, leaving Jade just standing there, hoping that John and Casey would be okay. "Miss, that man is kinda scary," a small voice told her as she watched. She glanced down and saw the little boy from before, Justice, standing next to her. "He yelled at me to get away from the girl, and I did, and now they're playing chase up there."

"Get them down! No, wait, don't! I don't want you getting hurt because of John being stupid! Go back to Karkat and Terezi before you do end up getting hurt! They're worried about you."

"Aunt Terezi is always worried about me." He had a hint of sadness in his voice, which became evident when he told Jade, "I just wish she was more worried about other things, not me." That was when he walked off, and she just stood there, waiting for her loved ones to get back to the floor, the haunting words of that kid floating in her head.

Once they were down, she made sure to keep them both close to her and as far away from the play area as she possibly could. It didn't matter how much John insisted that it was actually fun up there, because she was so completely done with that whole situation. In fact, she was done with the party, wanting to leave as soon as she could.

Six hours of total humiliation (not of them, but of Tavros and Vriska) later, and they were cleared to leave. Over those six hours, Casey had gotten to talk to Justice more, forming a shaky but real friendship with the new boy, Rose had come over again to talk and learn more about Jade and her family, and, of course, John and Karkat aided Dave in some of his humorous schemes. It wasn't until everyone who had come over in the van was buckled up and ready to leave that the part of the party that Jade had missed while initially talking to Rose was discussed, but when it was, she was ready to punch someone.

"What was all that cheering about back when I was in the tubes?" John had asked, while putting the van into reverse. "I wasn't able to see a thing, aside from what looked like someone on the floor. Care to explain?"

"Yeah, all I saw of it was the person on the floor. What happened?"

Sharing a disappointed look between themselves, Tavros and Vriska both began to fiddle with their fingers. "Well, uh, it seems you missed the proposal, which sucks," Tavros meekly said, trying to hide a nervous stutter. "It was a wonderful thing, and it would have been cool if you had seen it."

"You're kidding, right?" Jade asked after a moment of stunned silence, one in which she looked back at the two who were both smiling. "No, you can't be kidding. What the fuck inspired this decision? I thought you two were happy living an unmarried life with each other!"

"I thought we were too!" Vriska replied, turning her smile into a grin. "But I guess that Tavros decided that it was time to change things up—as if kids I didn't ever want to have weren't enough of a change—and so he gave me the silliest Pokémon-inspired proposal ever. I cried, and definitely did not refuse it."

Unlike Jade's question of disbelief, John asked something a bit more pressing. "Where'd you get the money for the ring? You work a minimum-wage job, with three mouths to feed. How did you manage to save up enough to get her any kind of decent ring?"

"I'm not really sure, honestly," he said after a couple seconds of contemplating. "Probably has something to do with the fact that I haven't been the only one working for the past few months. I mean, Vriska getting herself an easy job to give us some extra money couldn't have anything to do with it."

"Are you saying that you weren't going to ever propose to me if I didn't get a job?"

"I wouldn't have ever been able to, my love." That's where the conversation ended, because before any more questions could be asked, the two started talking amongst themselves, with the occasional kiss or laugh coming from them.

And although Jade was a bit bummed out that she didn't get to see the proposal, she was glad to know that they were happy, and that everything seemed to be all right for them.

* * *

Two nights later, while on the computer video chatting with John's dad, Jade received a message that contained a link to a video that she was told she "had to watch right then or else." Thinking that it was a cute cat video or something of that sort, she had it playing in the background while still on the webcam. Within five seconds, she regretted that decision.

It turned out that the video she was sent was a recap of everything that had happened at the party, from the balloons dropping, to the proposal, to just little random interactions with some of the guests. There was highly inappropriate flirting between Dave (who seemed to be the one holding the camera) and several guests. There was a part where the camera was fixated on Snow, and then turned to focus on the little Cherry girl that Terezi and Karkat had brought with them. And there was a part involving Casey and Justice in the play area, something that Jade herself hadn't ever been aware of.

"What are you watching?" the elder Egbert asked her, snapping her back into the reality that she _was _on webcam with him. "Is it anything I would be interested in?"

"Oh, just something from this party we went to a couple days ago. Nothing big."

He chuckled. "I believe you, Jade dear. Now turn it off until after we're done discussing these things. I want these plans made in stone before John gets home." She obliged, mostly because she did want to be able to surprise John with what they were planning, but partly because she wanted to be able to actually react to the video without being watched.

That led to, of course, there being a five-person viewing group the next day, with Casey watching to see herself, John and Jade watching to see everything that went on while they weren't paying attention, and Tavros and Vriska watching to relive one of the moments where their lives changed forever.

The one comment anyone had afterward, aside from Vriska's offhanded remark that she looked absolutely terrible throughout the video (which couldn't have been helped, since she was in the later stages of her pregnancy) was that, of all the places to make a Pokémon reference, a marriage proposal was not one of them. But Tavros just smiled and asked to get to listen to it over and over again, because, as he put it, "Asking her to reach level one hundred with me sounded so much cooler than asking her to get old at my side."

It could have been worse, he later pointed out. "I could have easily made a reference to the daycare man in that. He doesn't know where the eggs come from, after all." John and Jade couldn't argue against that one.

* * *

**A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on January 30th, 2013.**

**This entry is still one that, to this day, I wish I had written better. Alas, it's been over two years since it was written and there's not much I'm going to be changing now, haha. It works for what it needed to accomplish, and that's really what matters.**

**Next week, there will be the first Intermission of the fic. What does that mean? Well, check in next week to find out. :)**


	9. Intermission I

**Intermission I**

_Let's Play Truth or Dare/Let's Not Get Arrested While Partying/Let's Make Drunken Fools of Ourselves_

"You're probably all wondering why I've gathered you here today, in the place we know as the Egbert apartment," Dave said, his back to the front door as he looked from guest to guest that were sitting on the couch and floor. "Well, I'm about to tell you. We're playing a game of truth or dare. And drinking, but that should be pretty self-explanatory. This _is_ one of my parties."

A round of questions rose up from the group, anything from "How are we supposed to get home if we're drunk?" to "I have work tomorrow, so can I leave early?" to "If I drink, I'm going to be endangering a life that's not mine, so can I just not?" He answered them all in one fell swoop: "No one's going home tonight, there's three apartments that have places for everyone to sleep. Sorry, but you've got to stay until at least midnight. And, Vriska, I'm not a dumbass, so I made sure to bring juice and stuff for you, so you can drink but not really."

"Oh wow, juice and stuff. That's my favorite. You tell someone who hasn't been able to get drunk in years that they're at a drinking party, and that you've got juice and stuff for them, and you expect them to be happy, don't you? Well I'm not happy." Being as close to her normal dramatic self as she could muster, Vriska crossed her arms so that they rested on her stomach and rolled her eyes. "Guess I'll have to take what I'm given, though."

"Okay, glad you've gotten your arguments out of your system. Everyone who can, take a shot. If you can't, continue sitting on the couch giving me dirty looks. We're going to get up close and personal with each other." Dave cracked a smile as drinks started getting passed around. "First person to give up has to sleep with me tonight."

The thing was, everyone knew he was being serious about that, making the stakes of this round of truth or dare extremely high for some, and less high for others. For instance, if it was one of the guys who happened to win, they would just have to have a bro-sleepover of sorts, which wasn't that bad of a punishment. If it was, for the most part, one of the ladies, they'd be having to sleep with someone they had no romantic interest in (somewhat debatable in Rose's case, because she had been invited by Dave). And then there was Vriska, who was already a bitch when it came to sleeping in her proper bed so potentially getting her into Dave's could quite possibly be more trouble than it was worth.

Once everyone who could be was slightly drunk, the fun began. Dave, being the great host that he was, started with the first question. "Okay, who's got their phone on them?" When no one wanted to admit to having one, he looked to the lady of the apartment. "Jade. You go first. Truth or dare?"

"Since I'm scared your truth question will have something to do with phone contacts, dare, please."

"Bad choice. Grab your phone and call someone, and tell them you know where the Chamber of Secrets is." Dave pulled his sunglasses down to look at Jade, who stared blankly back at him. "What are you waiting for, do it!"

She sighed and extracted her cell phone from her pocket. "Okay, but only because we just started this game and I don't want it to be over already." Dialing one of the numbers of her contacts, everyone was honestly surprised when no one in the room had their phone start going off. In fact, it seemed that, whoever it was that she called, they didn't even answer, causing her to leave one of the strangest voicemails anyone had heard: "Uh, hey, I know you're not used to me calling you like this, but I got some top-secret information for you. I know where the Chamber of Secrets is, but I can't tell you now. Secrets, you know? Call me back if you're interested."

"Who did you end up calling?" Dave asked her after they all laughed for a bit. She shrugged, said it was a number she found in a bathroom stall one time and saved simply for situations like this, and everyone laughed once more.

After the laughter subsided a second time, it was Jade's time to pick her target. "Hm, how about you, John? Truth or dare?"

"Hit me with the craziest dare you can thing of, darling. I'm sure it'll be a piece of cake." He wasn't expecting to be told to make out with a poster, that was for certain. "Oh. It just so happens that I have a poster I can use for this, so be right back." He left the room for his bedroom, and when he came back, he had a Con Air movie poster in tow. "I've been waiting for a time to desecrate the fuck out of this thing. Tongue, I'm sorry for the papercuts you're about to endure, but it's time to make out with mister Cameron Poe until his face rips in half."

True to his word, John indeed made out with the poster until the character's face was in two pieces, and would have probably kept going until the poster was completely shredded if it wasn't for Jade telling him she'd seen enough. "Sorry, I got a bit carried away with that dare. Now what, it's my turn to pick who goes next, right?"

"Sure is. Now make this interesting, and don't pick one of your best bros."

"Can do, Dave. I think I'm going to pick Rose for this one, so truth or dare?" The short-haired blond shrugged before saying that she was a bit wary of the dares he'd give her, so a truth would be suitable. "Okay, this is lame, but are you attracted to anyone in here?"  
"Let's see...there's two married couples, an engaged couple, and Dave. No, I'd say I'm pretty much not attracted to any of you. Sorry, Dave, but I don't find guys who are nearing thirty who still think they're turning twenty-one attractive." She flashed him a shit-eating grin, he scowled back at her, and the game continued. "I pick Karkat next, since he seems like he'll take my ideas a fun way. Truth or dare, scary guy?"

Karkat shook his dark hair out of his face in an attempt to make himself look less scary, but failed miserably at it. "Whatever. Hit me with a dare. Best one you can come up with."

"Best one, huh?" Giving him the same grin she had given Dave moments before, she grabbed her purse and rummaged through it, pulling out a tube of lipstick and handing it over to him. "Put this on. For the rest of the night, you get to be feminine. Maybe it'll make you look less like a murderer and more like a normal kind of guy."

Without so much as looking in the mirror, Karkat made good on the dare and applied the bright pink makeup on his lips, earning himself many laughs from everyone. "You're just jealous I'm a pretty man," he said, handing the lipstick back to its owner, who tossed it into her purse once more. "Do I have the same 'no bro' stipulation that John had?" Dave nodded that yes, yes he did, meaning Karkat needed to pick someone who wasn't him or John. "Fair enough. Terezi, babe, truth or dare?"

"Good question. I'm feeling kind of dare-y, to be honest, so let's go with that."

He sat in thought for roughly a minute, trying to come up with a dare that wouldn't rely too heavily on seeing things, since Terezi's sight wasn't exactly the greatest. Finally, he looked at her with the straightest face he could muster with that lipstick on and said, "I want you to moan. Moan as hard and as loud as you can. Make people interested that aren't me."

"You jerk," she hissed in return, before taking a deep breath and emitting the loudest moan she could muster. It wasn't the most convincing, but the erotic feel to it got people squirming in their seats, even causing Dave to have to stand up and leave the room for a moment to collect himself. But no one was more affected by it than Karkat, who had to throw his hands over his crotch to cover any sight of a bulge that may have appeared. "There, good enough?" He told her it was, and she clapped her hands together in happiness. "Great! My turn! Vriska, which one do you pick?"

"Truth. So I don't end up getting saddled with stupid physical activity."

"Okay, you asked for it. What's a habit that Tavros has that you just cannot stand? And don't tell me anything that's outdated. I'm looking for things you haven't ever told me before." That caused Vriska to have to actually come up with something, because her original, top-of-her-head answer was something that Terezi had probably known since before they had even graduated high school. "Well? Got something?"

"I'm waiting for Dave to come back," she replied, looking towards the hallway that the man had walked down. When he reemerged from the darkness, she gave her answer. "This has got to be the worst answer ever, but I'd say the habit of him constantly 'forgetting' to, uh, protect himself is the one that bothers me most. Fuck his habit of hiding during storms, because he's pushed that one on me. And fuck his habit of leaving his dirty clothes on my side of the bed, because I can easily do the same back to him. It's the fact that he's never once been man enough to either buy some god damn condoms or ask any of you guys for one that really bothers me. Because he doesn't get them and then he fucks me anyway and we see where that gets us." She finished her rant with a deep breath and a disapproving glare not at the man she was speaking of, but down at her pregnant stomach. "We didn't even really want kids, but because he's a pansy he's knocked me up three times now."

Terezi was about to ask why Vriska needed to wait for Dave to go off on that rant, but the blond man made it very clear as to why. He approached her, hand outstretched, and gave her the greatest of high-fives. "You, Vriska, are a beautiful woman, and I hope that speech teaches him the lesson my 'put-it-away' party tried to."

"Thanks for making me feel like shit, you two." Tavros, his face a brighter red than almost anyone had ever seen it, looked away from everyone and sniffled a bit. "Nice to know that my lover and one of my best friends really feel that way."

"You knew I was going to go off on you about that if I got the chance. You do not know how hard life is until you've been pregnant twice in a year, and it's your fault that I got to experience this. I didn't even want it..." The room became eerily silent after that, until Vriska shook her head and perked back up. "So, I'm picking Dave because I can. What's it gonna be, Strider?"

"Since I don't want crazy woman hormones making me jump out the window, I'm saying truth. Now don't make me talk about my sex life, because unlike you, I don't have one." He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for what he assumed would be a lame dare; he got exactly what he was expecting. She gave him one look and told him to share what his favorite feature of the opposite gender was. "Easy. Breasts. Big ones, small ones, doesn't matter, as long as they're touchable."

The sound of a hand connecting with his arm in a forceful smack filled the room. "You're disgusting, Dave!" Rose yelled, smacking him a few more times to express her displeasure. "No wonder no girls are attracted to you! You're a gross pig who just wants their chest!"

"Okay, making a correction to my statement. I don't like boobs that are small like Rose's. There's nothing fun about them. They don't even jiggle." That led to him being smacked even more, until she simply gave up, moving from her spot on the floor next to him to over in the corner. "Changed my mind. Rose's chest is as good as anyone's. Except Vriska's. Holy hell if I could touch a rack like hers I would be in heaven."

"I'm not going to sit next to you again, asshole. I considered it, until you made the comments about Vriska. She's off-limits to your dirty hands." It seemed that Rose was having none of Dave's behavior, until she looked at him, and he had a smirk on his face that expressed that he was serious about nothing he had said. "Okay, fine, I'll sit next to you again."

He wiped the smirk off his lips as she scooted back to her original spot. "Thanks. Now it's time for a game I like to call 'let's make life hard for Tavros.' We all know the rules, right?" His question was serious, but the only answer he got was widened eyes and a rapid, but worried, headshake from the guy mentioned in the question. "I'm taking that as a yes. So, buddy, what's it gonna be?"

"I know better than to take dares from you. Give me a truth."

"Fair enough. What's the absolute stupidest thing you've ever said while you and Vriska have gotten frisky? No lying, no dancing around the answer. Tell us it straight." He gave Tavros a supportive thumbs-up. "We're not going to judge you."

Tavros leaned back against the back of the couch, a hand stroking his chin as he looked between Dave and Vriska and thought about how to answer the question. "This one's bad, okay, but it fits. We were, uh, doing things, and I was like 'I wonder if the guy at the daycare in Pokémon has seen this kind of stuff, but with Pokémon, not with humans' and she got all quiet and it was weird and awkward." He laughed a bit, but no one laughed with him. "What? I answered my truth. That's what I was supposed to do, right?"

"I'd say that the stupidest thing you said to me during sex is that you didn't care that you weren't wearing a condom, because there was absolutely no way you were gonna knock me up." Vriska playfully elbowed Tavros as she spoke, earning herself an eyeroll or two. "You know that's stupid. And you've said it more than once. Three times, if I remember correctly."

"You two seriously have some issues. Or maybe we need Tavros to read a health book. I'm not sure which yet." Another thumbs-up and a smirk came from Dave. "Anyway, your turn to pick who goes. Who's it gonna be?"

He pointed at Jade, who was actually scanning through a stack of books to see if there were any on a relevant topic. "Her. I pick her. I've got perfect ideas for her. Jade, what do you want to do?"

"Truth, please. I'm not doing a dare from you, since I know you and Dave are kinda the same."

"Um, okay. Have you ever done a striptease for John? Weird question, but you've got to answer it." It was very obvious that Tavros felt uncomfortable asking it, as if he had been hoping for her to ask for a dare, but she had no problems at all answering it.

Her eyes went from the stack of books to locking with his, and with the straightest face she could possibly manage, she said, "Yes. I certainly have. I know all the moves to get him to drop his pants and bang me until sunrise. You can't have a relationship like ours without giving a striptease every once in a while."

"I think I just learned more about your relationship than I wanted to ever know..." He got up from his seat, walked over to the stack of drinks that Dave had brought, and grabbed a couple of cans. "I'll have to drink myself into a stupor now, thanks."

The game took a break then, with almost everyone trying to erase the images that Jade put in their heads through the use of alcohol. She, on the other hand, chose to drink simply because Dave had acquired some interesting brands and she wanted to try them, and John taste-tested alongside her. As for Vriska, who couldn't get drunk to forget, she wandered off to Casey's room, where she had set up a crib for Snow to sleep in during the party. She was greeted by the sight of two little girls sitting in silence, neither of them asleep due to the ruckus the adults were causing, and so she spent a good half-hour trying to get them both to just lay down and fall asleep. With Casey, it was easy, because she understood what Vriska was telling her; Snow didn't, and just babbled at her mom the very simple words she knew, until the blond picked her up and carried her back into the living room with her.

"Hey, no babies," Dave said, pointing at the dark-skinned child that Vriska was now holding. "She's going to get corrupted by all of us if she's out here. Put her back in the room."

"Why don't you shut the fuck up, Dave? She wasn't sleeping, and I couldn't get her to like I could Casey, so she's just going to chill out with me until she drifts off. Easy as that." She looked down at Snow, who was trying to grab onto her mom's hair. "Besides, me and her could use some mommy-baby bonding time before she's not the baby anymore."

"Okay, whatever. She can stay, but don't think that means we're going to skip you for questioning." It didn't matter what Dave said there, because Vriska was too busy giving her daughter kisses to even pay attention. "The game restarts now, everyone. Jade, you pick who goes next."

She clapped excitedly (if a bit drunkenly). "Rose! New girl! I don't know enough about you to really embarrass you, so truth or dare?"

"Truth me. I'm not scared of getting a little bit creepy around you guys." Rose sat on the floor, hands on her lap, waiting for Jade to hit her with a question. It took a moment for one to come, but then she was faced with having to answer what fictional baddie she found attractive. "Oh. Is that all? This one's super easy. Season one Meg from Supernatural. She's a badass and her hair is short and wow she's attractive."

"You like girls?" Karkat bluntly asked, before realizing that it wasn't exactly the most eloquent of ways to ask that question.

But Rose still nodded in response. "Sure do. And guys. I guess you can say that gender doesn't mean that much to me, but I like short-haired blondes and if they're a girl, that's great, and if they're a guy, that's also great. Now, since I dared you last time, Karkat, I'm going to pick Terezi. What's it gonna be, sweetie?"

"Truths are for wimps. Give me the riskiest dare you can come up with." Terezi, with her mostly blind eyes and her big smile, was prepared for anything.

It just so happened that Rose was equally prepared. "Go outside. We'll send Karkat with you, don't worry. But you've got to go out there where we can see you and yell that you're a superstar. Five times should do it. And don't think I won't be watching, because I'm going to be."

"You drive a tough bargain Rose, but I'm going to do it. Come on Karkat, we've got to go outside for this dare." Everyone who was paying attention knew that the fact that Karkat had to go too was in retaliation for his comments about Rose liking girls, and he wasn't pleased at all, flipping the woman off before he left. She ignored his immaturity, instead going to the window and watching for them to go outside, opening the window to listen once they were there. She applauded Terezi once she heard the call five times, and they came back up five floors to rejoin the party soon after. "It's fucking cold out there, Lalonde. Be happy I'm not a quitter."

"Be happy I'm not about to strangle you both for making that window be open while I have Snow in here," Vriska muttered, pulling the little girl in close to her chest. "Poor little thing's freezing because of you."

"Maybe you should have listened to Dave and kept her out of here, then? Don't blame us for playing the game." Rose gave a non-caring hairflip, which irked Vriska to the point that she was saying curses under her breath, before just getting up and taking the baby with her. "Serves her right."

Terezi, who was sitting back down after her adventure outside, didn't like the attitude that was taken up towards her friend. "Hey, be nice to her. She's trying to be a good mom to her kid, and that means bringing her out here even though she shouldn't. Be a little kinder, will you? You never know if you'll one day be in that situation."

"I should have added to my speech about my bisexuality that I prefer girls over guys, so kids probably aren't going to happen. Thanks for the concern, though. Now ask your question and let's get on with this game."

"Okay, whatever. Dave, which do you pick?" He wasn't expecting to be asked by Terezi, so it took him a moment to fully understand that it was indeed his turn, and once he knew, he said he'd like a dare because he lived life on the edge. "If I could, I'd tell you to jump out the window. But I'm not going to get you killed. Instead, I'm going to make us all laugh at you. The wall you're leaning up against? It's now your boyfriend. Tell it how much you love it."

He quite literally jumped to his feet, almost knocking over his half-full beer that had been sitting next to him. "Well, hello there, my love," he crooned, pressing his crotch area against the wall. "It's about time that we get to have a little chat. I know you've always wanted to see me naked, and...oh? You want that now? I don't know...you seem like you're a bit tipsy. I don't want to get in trouble for you wanting me while you're out of your mind. Let's take things slow."

Everyone there erupted in applause, and Dave continued. "But you know what? Tomorrow, when you're nursing your wicked hangover from this, I'll make the sweetest love to you you'll have ever gotten. And then when I'm done with that, I'll get you all drunk again and we'll do this the next day. Oh, wall baby, I love you." With that, he pressed his face up against the wall and began making the sloppiest makeout noises he could manage, causing everyone to applaud more.

"What the fuck is happening in here?" Vriska said, waddling her way back into the room to the sight of Dave kissing the wall. "Did he lose his mind?"

"No, I dared him to have the wall be his boyfriend. I think he wins this round." Terezi whistled, causing Dave to pull himself away from the wall, and take a bow. "Good job."

"Thanks. Now who will be my next target? Eenie meenie miney Vriska."

She was barely back to sitting down when she heard her name. "Fuck no. I refuse."

"You know what? I'll pander to your refusal, just this once." He grabbed a can, took a nice long drink of the alcoholic substance within, and picked a new target. "John. Best bro. Which do you want, truth or dare?"

"I'm not stupid enough to pick one of your dares, Dave. Give me a truth."

The blond man had to think for a second, since he was so ready to give one to Vriska that he didn't have one specially made for John. "Oh! I know! What's the kinkiest thing you've ever done with Jade in bed?"

"Why are you asking me this? Can't a married couple have some privacy in their lives?" After being told that no, in truth or dare, there was no such thing as privacy, John sighed. "You don't want to hear this. You really don't."

"It can't be that bad," Karkat said, looking at his friend with a smile. "You two are so down-to-earth that you've probably never done anything weird. No cop scenarios. No handcuffs and whips. None of the fun stuff." Him mentioning those things made Terezi blush and mumble some incomprehensible things, most of which were probably about Karkat sharing their bedroom secrets.

"Okay, fine, I'll say it. One time, I ended up with a collar and animal ears and a tail, just so I could help Jade act out some freakish animal fantasy she had." While Jade covered her face in embarrassment from John actually saying that, everyone else started to laugh and joke about how silly that was. "Whatever, my turn is now over. Tavros, you go."

The darker man nodded. "Give me something to tell the truth about, then."

"When we met, you and Vriska had just moved to this building from...somewhere. Why? Why here?"

"That's kind of a two-part answer, honestly," he said after looking at Vriska for any clues about how to give a response. She merely shrugged and gave no advice. "We were both done with where we lived, that's for sure, and I wanted to go to school out here since it seemed nice and it was away from my older brother. Ugh. Fuck that guy."

"Wait a second, you have a brother?" Terezi, having overcome her bout of blushing from before, raised her eyebrows in Tavros' direction. "I went to school with you and I didn't know that."

He bit his lip for a second before replying. "I didn't talk about him a lot. I still don't. He's the perfect child that my parents always wanted, and I just tried to be as good as him. As far as I know, my parents have no idea that I dropped out of fucking community college, or that me and Vriska are still together and have Snow and another kid on the way, and I won't tell them because I know they'll compare me to my asshole brother and I don't want that!"

"Basically, he's hiding things from his family for the same reason I'm hiding it from my mom. I don't want the comparisons," Vriska added, her voice softer than normal.

"But you don't have siblings! I know for a fact that it's just you!"

"Yeah, Terezi, but my mom's always been big on comparing me to herself. She was mad that I wasn't the most popular girl at school, mad that I'd rather play games than go on dates, mad that I ran off with someone who wasn't white..." She shook her head before she went on. "I'm sure she'd be pissed to high heaven that I'm unmarried still, even though she wasn't married when she had me. But whatever."

Dave cleared his throat as Vriska finished speaking. "I like hearing about these family problems, but I need to take a piss break. All this drinking has really made me need to go." He stood up and quite literally dashed to the bathroom, leaving everyone else just sitting in silence, waiting for his return to speak again. Once he came back, he looked at the group, wondering why they weren't talking. "Is story time done? Are we moving on with the game?"

"Yeah, I'm going to make Rose go now, because I don't know what she'll pick and I want to maybe get to learn some more about her." Tavros gave Rose a small smile, and she gave him one back in return. "What's it going to be?"

"Since you want to learn about me, I'll ask for a truth. That gives me a bit more time to tell you about myself some more." He was very quick to ask her to talk more about her sexuality, which she was okay with doing. "Well, as I said before, I'm bisexual, and I'm more into girls than guys. I have dated people on both ends of the spectrum, so this isn't me trying to be edgy or different. This is me being comfortable with who I am."

"Do you have a girlfriend right now?" Karkat asked her, curiosity in his voice. "Like, is there a girl you could have brought along?"

Rose shook her head, focusing her eyes on the ground in front of her. "Right now, I don't have a woman, but I'll probably have another one here in the near future. My last girlfriend just recently broke up with me for some reason. Her loss, I guess." She laughed. "I'm sorry that I'm not as interesting as you'd like me to be, Tavros, but that's pretty much all I can think of to say about my sexuality. Now, if you don't mind, it is now Dave's turn."

"Hit me with a dare, Rose. I'm ready for anything." That anything turned out to be having to act like a gorilla for the next two minutes, which he did without so much as a complain, but the noise that he made had Vriska getting a bit angry throughout his performance. Like the last time he went, he turned to her when he was done. "Okay, since you complained and totally just ruined my groove there, you get to go next."

And, just like the last time he asked her to go, she denied him. "Nope, not happening. Pick someone else, because I still refuse."

"Refuse, huh? Guess you'll be sleeping with me tonight. Get ready to be rocked by the irresistible Dave Strider, sweetie." He waggled his eyebrows and she sighed, taking back her refusal. "Good. Now truth or dare?"

"Since I don't want to have to answer anything stupid, dare. But make it doable." She pursed her lips in anticipation for whatever Dave was going to throw at her, but even her preparations were in vain: he gave her the dare of kissing all the guys in the room who weren't Tavros and telling them how they were better than her boyfriend. "Come the fuck on. I'm first forced to play this fucking game when I'm this pregnant, and now I have to kiss everyone that I don't love? I hate you so much right now, Dave." He just smirked and told her to get kissing.

Her first target, with a million apologies preceding it, was John. They only locked lips for a second, and when she was done brushing his taste away from her lips, she looked back at Tavros and calmly said, "His lips are softer. Barely, but softer." She then moved on to Karkat, who looked like he was about to punch her when she kissed him. "And him, he doesn't open his lips when he's kissed. I like that." Finally, she made it to Dave, who grabbed her and forced his mouth onto hers, seemingly making out with her just like he had the wall. When he was done he pulled her off, and she blinked for a second, opening her mouth to speak but having no words come out.

"Did you really just do that in front of me?" Tavros rudely asked, jumping from his spot to help Vriska back to hers. "That's a low fucking blow, you asshole."

"Hey, had to make it a bit interesting." Dave made a kissyface towards Tavros, before laughing. "Now she's got to tell me why my makeouts are infinitely better than yours. Prepare to feel worthless when she's done."

She was still speechless for a few minutes after she had retaken her seat, and when she gained the ability to speak once more, she was just muttering things under her breath that no one could understand. Finally, with a scowl on her face and her eyes shooting daggers in the Strider's direction, she said, "The only thing, and I mean only thing, better about doing that with Dave than Tavros is that Dave doesn't have weirdly chipped teeth. That's it. His tongue's all wild, and I doubt he could normally kiss a girl to save his life. And he tasted like wall. Ick."

As a bright red embarrassment blush took over Dave's normally stoic face, everyone else laughed at Vriska's blunt diss of his kissing skills. It even earned her a short kiss from Tavros, which would have been longer if it wasn't for Dave regaining his typical composure and pointing an accusing finger at the blond woman. "Fucking give me a dare right now. This game is officially on."

"What if I don't want to pick you?"

"I said fucking give me a dare."

She rolled her eyes and thought for a second. "Fair enough. Go ask one of the little kiddos out on a date. But if you wake my baby up by being loud, I will snap your neck." She gave him a toothy grin that irritated him more than he already was, but he got up, demanded for someone to follow him, and was gone into one of the back rooms with Rose to verify that he was doing the dare. The moment they were gone, Vriska let out a drawn-out sigh. "I hate this game. Can I stop playing it now? I'm not drunk enough to appreciate this."

"Vriska, you're not even drunk a little bit," John replied, before realizing that she wasn't talking about needing to change her state of sobriety, but rather the necessity to be anything but sober to play truth or dare with Dave and have fun. "We can't let you quit, though. He'll get mad."

"He won't remember a thing about tonight in the morning. He's pretty drunk now, I'm sure." Tavros protectively wrapped his arms around Vriska, adding, "We'll just go downstairs and call it a night, and you can continue on without us. Fair enough?"

"No! Fuck no!" Without any of them realizing it, Dave had come back into the picture, and was very upset at the mere mention of someone leaving. "I just asked a fucking baby out on a date and got rejected by spit bubble! You two are not leaving until one of you lose! Now tell me what you want to do, Nitram, because you are going to pay for wanting to go."

Tavros, with a wide-eyed expression planted on his face, shook his head in exasperation for a second before humoring Dave: "Give me the best dare you can come up with. I don't want any stupid stuff. If you want me to play, make it hard."

Before he spoke, Dave made sure to rip his glasses from his face and toss them across the room and against the wall, shattering them and revealing his eyes, which were a bit glazed over from his drinking, but otherwise quite wild-looking. "Since you and your bitch both were going to leave, I say you've got to change all your clothes with her. And I mean all of them."

"I'm sorry, but there's no way I'm going to be able to wear what he's wearing!" Vriska pouted, while Tavros sighed and stood up, dragging her with. "Have you looked at us? He's like a twig and I'm...huge! He'll be swimming in my clothing and I doubt his shirt will even cover half of me! This dare is completely unfair!"

"That sounds like you're saying 'oh Dave, I want to sleep in your bed tonight' and I'm not sure you really want that." With a wink and another kissyface, Dave managed to convince Vriska that, no matter how bad the dare was going to turn out, it needed to be done. And so, they walked off to the bathroom to change, leaving everyone else to pull out phones and cameras to take pictures of what was about to happen.

What did end up happening didn't disappoint. After hearing many screams and insults thrown around from inside that bathroom, no one was prepared to see Tavros come out literally drowning in what he was wearing. The pants he now had on were barely at his knees, simply because of how high he was holding them to get a good grip on them, and the shirt was like a tent on his thin frame. "Dave, I don't think she's coming out of there," he said, after a round a pictures were taken. "She doesn't feel like she's decent enough to show everyone."

"Well, if she hadn't gone and gotten herself knocked up, there wouldn't be this problem. Get her to come out here so we can laugh at her."

Tavros sighed and went back to get Vriska, and when they both returned, everyone got a good laugh at what they were presented with. While Tavros was able to properly cover himself (although he was having a hard time keeping the pants up) with what he was forced to wear, Vriska was having a much different problem. Her attempt to get Tavros' pants on had them halfway up her legs, and his shirt was bunched up right under her breasts, simply because if she tried to pull it down any further, she would have ripped it. "This is fucking ridiculous," she muttered, using her arms to try and cover her exposed stomach. "I didn't want to play this game. Why am I doing this?"

"You don't want to sleep with me," Dave mockingly replied, and she flipped him off, before quite literally waddling back to the bathroom to get back into her own clothing. Before Tavros followed her, he looked at Dave and told him to prepare himself for either a truth or dare when he returned. "I'm not really that scared of what you're going to throw at me, so don't take too long. I may get bored if you're too slow."

However long it took them to change back, it wasn't long enough for Dave to get bored, and so when he asked for his typical dare, Tavros pulled inspiration from the situation he was just in. "I dare you to be a superhero. Underwear on the outside. For the rest of the night."

Without so much as blinking, Dave whipped his pants and boxers off (much to the disgust of everyone in the room) and did as he was dare to. "Oh, wow, so fucking scary. It's like playing this game with an idiot. Go again, asshole. Truth or dare?"

Everyone who wasn't Dave, Tavros, or Vriska was watching intently as the darker-skinned man mulled over which choice to pick. "You know what, I'll go with a truth. There's not much that I've got to hide from the people in this room," he said, waving his hand at everyone, but John and Jade in particular. "So what do you have for me?"

"Since I just treated the room to a glimpse of the mini Strider, I want you to tell everyone here just how long your meatloaf is." The room fell into a stunned silence, with hushed whispers about what, exactly, Dave was referring to.

"Um, what do you mean by his 'meatloaf'? That's a type of food, not a body part," Terezi finally said after everyone collectively gave up on deciphering the message—everyone except Tavros, that was, as he knew full well what it referred to and he was blushing about it. "So what's the deal, Dave? What are you asking about?"

"You're all idiots when you're shitfaced. I want to know how long his schlong is. His winky. His sausage. His fucking dick. I mean, it's got to be long if he's getting the chance to put it in Vriska all the time, you know? So share it, Nitram."

"You act like I've actually measured it...I don't know how long it is, honestly. Now can we move on? This is just awkward." Dave didn't accept that answer, and so Tavros had to come up with a better excuse to avoid giving the truth out. "Well, uh, it's probably at least half a foot. At least. Can we please move on now?" Still wasn't good enough. "Fine. You want me to tell you? I'll tell you. It's like seven inches. There. I said it. Now leave me alone about it and just let me ask you something."

The blond man grinned at getting an actual answer. "Thanks, man! Now I'll let you have it easy and you can just give me a truth this time."

"Fair enough. What would you do first if you suddenly became a girl?"

"What kind of question is that? Of course I'd stick a finger in and pleasure myself. Anyone who says they'd do otherwise is a dirty liar." This earned Dave a punch from Rose, who was angered by something with his way of sexualizing women, and a glare from Karkat, who probably would have shared the same answer if it was a truth he was given. "Anyway, I'll back off the guy for a while, and go after Vriska again. Truth or dare, sweet cheeks?"

She paled at the mere mention of her name. "Not again. You can pick someone else. I'm calling this round off."

"Looks like you'll be sleeping with me tonight then."

"Fuck, okay. Dare me, but only because I'd rather not be asked something incredibly personal that you don't need to know."

With an evil glint in his eye that spelled trouble, Dave put on his straightest face before saying, "Dare, huh? Well, I know all of us in here have been drinking..." He looked around at everyone, with their various beer bottles and cans sitting around. "And I also know that you're not going to willingly drink. Something about killing babies? I don't know. So I'm going to do you a favor, Vriska, and I dare you to drink."

The room got quiet enough to hear a pin drop, as Vriska was faced with a difficult choice that absolutely no one envied her for. On one hand, she would have to spend the night sleeping with Dave. On the other, she would be poisoning her body and potentially killing the child growing inside her. Neither choice was a good one, but she had to pick. "Hey, don't think I'll be mad at you if you sleep with him," Tavros whispered in her ear, grabbing her hand and squeezing it tightly. "I don't want you hurting the baby, so just give up."

"Making her do that shouldn't be allowed!" Jade screeched from where she was sitting, before dissolving into a bunch of drunken rambles that John had to calm her down from. But her one outburst earned support from everyone else in the room...except for Dave, who repeated his dare once more.

"I can't do it, Dave."

"That's what I like to hear. Game's over, everyone. Find somewhere to sleep and stay there. I'm taking my prize back to my place." He got up and pulled her off of the couch and away from Tavros, before leading her away without another word, and definitely without letting them say goodbye or good night.

The talk between everyone for the rest of the time they were together was about how unfair Dave's rules were, and how he needed to get some sort of payback for what he'd done. Them all finding out that he had been pushed out of his bed, breaking some of the instruments and such he kept next to it, all because he was a centimeter too close to Vriska as she slept was considered the perfect payback.

And the next time he organized a truth or dare party, they made sure that someone that _wasn't_ Dave was in charge of rules.

* * *

A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on March 26th, 2013.

This is just a bit of a break from the current story arc at hand - even though this chronologically takes place exactly where I've posted it. There will be more little "intermissions" like this one as we go on. :) For now, though, enjoy this beauty of a story and come back next week for more!


	10. Act II Part IV

**Act II Part IV**

_Let's Make Memories_

Nestled in the far back corner of a restaurant just down the street from the apartment building, six people sat at the table, talking amongst themselves as they waited for their server to come and take their order. Unlike most dinners they had, though, this wasn't the normal six people. There were John and Jade and Casey, and Tavros and Snow, but instead of Vriska being there, an older gentleman rounded out the group. No one really seemed to mind that he was taking her place—in fact, it seemed to be a very good thing that he was there instead of her. He had already said he would pay for the meal, and he was there to bring good news to at least some of the people present.

This was, of course, because he was John's dad and he loved his son and daughter-in-law and granddaughter and their friends very much. "It's my pleasure to do something like this for people who mean so much to my family," he explained as they were seated. "It's a shame though that not everyone could join us tonight. I have missed Dave and his unintelligible rapping, as well as Vriska and her, to put it nicely, interesting look on life."

But because of the elder Egbert's kindness and also his unfortunate pick of restaurant, the logical sixth person for the group would be joining them. They had been seated for just a few minutes, telling the older man about life and things that had gone on since the last time he had been around, when their server came over. The smiles that erupted on everyone's faces should have clued him in to who it was, but he looked at the woman who had come over to their table for a few seconds before joining in on the smile. "Ah, hello there Vriska. I wasn't aware you were joining us for tonight's meal. Tavros said something about you having to work."

Without so much as batting an eyelash, she replied, "I am at work. Have you guys decided what you want yet?" The three adults who had known that she was their server laughed, leaving the old man to scratch his head and actually get a good look at Vriska, who was dressed in a slightly modified version of the workers' attire at the restaurant. "Stop ogling me, mister Egbert. I know I look a lot different than I did the last time you saw me, but it doesn't give you the right to be staring at me."

"My apologies, but I wasn't aware you worked here. Your uniform, ahem, fits you a bit differently than everyone else. It honestly makes you look like you're way heavier than I remember you being." His statement was extremely blunt and incredibly rude, but he had the version of Vriska stuck in his mind that was several years younger, not the one that was standing before him. "Did something happen to you that John never brought up?"

If looks could kill, the one she shot John would have left him dead in an instant. "Oh, nothing too terribly bad. Fell down the stairs, messed both of my knees up pretty badly. Bet he didn't tell you about that. Or the fact that I was like seven months pregnant when it happened." She shifted her gaze over to the high chair where Snow was. "But not with her. No, that was the second time. I can't believe he didn't mention that to you either. She _was_ born on the day they got in a car accident."

"Oh, that little girl is yours?" The elder Egbert looked at Snow, who was babbling to herself and banging a sugar packet on the side of the table. "I figured, since she's so dark, that she was Tavros's child from someone else..."

"You think he'd be able to get lucky with anyone else? No, mister Egbert, he couldn't. Snow is mine, and this baby here," she motioned toward her stomach, which didn't really need to be pointed out since it was incredibly enlarged compared to how she used to look, "is definitely his and will probably be just as dark as its sister is."

"So you two are married, yes? Unmarried people should not be procreating this much, especially when they work jobs like you two do."

She rolled her eyes, ignoring his question to instead actually do her job and take everyone's order. He didn't handle that very well, sitting in his seat with a hurt look on his face for the rest of the time she was around, but the second she left, he turned to Tavros and asked him the exact same thing. "Well, uh, not yet. We'll be married when we're ready for it, which is not now. Definitely not now."

"As long as you have the intent to marry her, I guess there really is no problem..." He sighed, which caused Tavros to nervously sigh in return. "Oh, is there something wrong with what I asked?"

"Yes, actually. I'm a bit, uh, bothered by the fact that you're treating us like we're lesser than John and Jade just because we're not married. We love each other just the same, but we haven't had the desire to get married yet. That doesn't make us any lesser, does it?" Grabbing Snow's sugar-less hand to hold it, he looked at the older man and sighed once more. "And we're not bad because we've had kids before we've gotten married. That's just how it happened, and it's an okay thing."

Before his dad could reply, John cleared his throat and spoke. "Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. Dad here always told me that him and my mom were never married. In fact, she had me and dropped me off on his doorstep and that was that. Isn't that right?"

"Hm? Oh, yes yes indeed. That's how it happened." Everyone at the table could tell that there was a hint of sadness in his voice as he said that, but no one had any idea why it would be there. After all, John had sounded like it was a funny story, so why would the old man be upset about it?

Whatever the case, the spirits at the table changed after Vriska had brought them all their drinks and their meals and actually sat down with them for a moment. That was when the old man spoke again, making sure to focus more on his own family than their friends. "As Jade knows, I have come here to tell about a gift I have for you, and I believe it's about time to reveal what it is, before we get too engrossed in our meals to care. So, without further ado, I'd like to say that I am taking you all to Disneyland. And by 'all of you' I mean the ones that I am related to."

"Why invite them out to dinner then?" John asked, even though he had a huge grin on his face. "Why rub it in that we get to go and they don't?"

"I thought to invite them, change hotel reservations and the like, but this trip is happening very soon and, after getting a good look at them both and their current state of living, I think leaving them here is best."

Once again, it was Vriska who rolled her eyes. "Is this another jab at the fact that we're poor?"

"Not at all. It's more for your own well-being, because I would hate for you to have to walk around the park for days and days while in your current state. Add in the fact that it seems your daughter is barely at the walking age and I think it would just be a miserable experience for you all." He gave a look that expressed his true condolences, and Vriska bought it, but Tavros was less accepting.

"So you're saying you're not going to take us because of things you think? That's kind of mean. What if we've wanted to go, huh? What if some of us have had dreams of meeting Peter Pan and Tinkerbell and you're just crushing them?"

"I wasn't aware that Snow was old enough to want to meet the Disney face characters. You can take her when she's old enough to truly grasp the moment." The sarcasm that laced his words made Tavros not want to give any sort of response, for fear of more of his dreams being crushed. "Now then, we leave Thursday night."

It wasn't until after the meal that anyone expressed any dislike of that, and even then, it wasn't to mister Egbert's face that it was expressed. "Jade, you helped plan this, right?" Vriska asked as the other woman started to leave the table. She said that yes, she had indeed helped, and the blond continued. "Okay, there's a tiny little thing that's bothering me. No, wait, two things. One, today's Monday. Thursday is in a couple days. You're leaving me with a very little bit of time to have you help me with stuff. Two, how long is this trip going to be?"

"Oh, like a week. There's not much to do at the park, so it may be shorter. I know why you're worried, and I'm sure everything is going to be fi—"

"Everything is _not_ going to be fine, Jade! What if the kid decides it wants to be born while you're gone? Who's gonna watch Snow for us? Oh, right, Dave is. And he'll end up killing her. I can't have you be gone at all while it's completely possible that I could have this baby. You're going to have to postpone this trip."

"I'm sorry, but I can't. Everything's been paid for already. I promise you that you'll be able to keep the little one in you long enough for me to leave and come back, and I promise you that nothing bad is going to happen to you. Of course, if you keep working, all promises are off." Jade pushed her chair in and started toward the front of the restaurant, Vriska following her. "All the walking and lifting this place makes you do is just going to make the chances of that kid coming out a lot higher."

Vriska stopped in her tracks for a second, before hurrying to catch up with Jade. "Did you just tell me to stop working? I...can't do that! We need the money this job brings us!"

"And I need to go on this trip with my family! You've got to make your choice, Vriska. Mine has already been made." And with that, the dark-haired woman rejoined the rest of the group and they all left, leaving Vriska behind to continue on with her work for the night.

* * *

The few days before the trip went by in a flash for John and Jade both, for different reasons; while John worked with his dad to get everything packed up and ready for a family vacation, Jade was having to spend almost every moment she could with Vriska, reassuring her that absolutely nothing would go wrong while they were gone. When it was roughly an hour before departure, she wasn't sure if she had gotten her point across, but if she hadn't it was too late to change anything.

Once the guys got everything out into the car to take to the airport, John's dad had a brilliant idea that involved everyone that was present. "Gather around, all of you," he said to them, looking from his family to Dave, who was there simply because he had nothing better to do, to Tavros and Vriska, who were playing with Snow. "I want to take a picture of this fine group before we leave, to mark the memories of my stay here. Organize how you'd like."

"A picture, huh? Mind if I go change into something a bit more photogenic?" Dave sarcastically asked, not expecting the positive answer the older man gave him. He left and returned within minutes, wearing a "I'm with stupid" shirt that had an arrow pointing to his left. When they got set up for the picture, he made sure to have Tavros being the person that arrow was pointing to, much to the darker guy's chagrin. No one argued about it though, and mister Egbert even got a chuckle out of it.

When everyone was finally situated, he took one look at them and shook his head. "Won't do. We need to get the children up off the floor. No heads below anyone's knees." To remedy this problem, he found a stool for Casey to stand on, and asked for Snow to be held up (but not cradled) by one of her parents. The resulting picture from that was one that he swore he would keep and send copies of to everyone that was there.

On one side stood Jade, with Casey clinging to her leg while standing on that stool, and John. They were more focused on each other than the camera, but no one seemed to mind. The middle was where Dave stood, flipping the bird from behind John's shoulder and unapologetically wearing that shirt that showed his feelings toward the kid situation with Tavros and Vriska. As for those two, Tavros was holding Snow in front of him, letting her legs dangle and having her laugh, while Vriska was next to him, striking what she referred to as the "sassiest" pose she could think of, holding her hands on the sides of her stomach.

After everyone looked at the picture, it became time for farewells and well-wishes, because the time for leaving was rapidly approaching, and if they were going to get to the airport (which wasn't even in their town, but the next one over), they needed to be on time. There was no time for long-winded goodbyes, though, and when Vriska tried to start getting dramatic in one last attempt to have Jade stay, that was when they knew it was time to go.

They piled into the van, made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and, after getting bags checked and through security in one piece, were ready to embark on a great adventure. Boarding the plane (and having to turn all electronics off) couldn't have come soon enough for them, because it gave Jade an excuse to not have to talk to Vriska for at least a little while, and she was growing extremely tired and annoyed with the pregnant blond. She could only take so much begging and whining, and that threshold had been surpassed long ago. When she was seated in her airplane chair, with John in the aisle seat, Casey in the middle, and her at the window, she was ready for the vacation to start, for the stress of real life to be gone and the fun of Disneyland, somewhere she hadn't been since she was little, to overtake everything.

Motherly duties came before anything however, and when Casey started to cry about the plane ride, she had to give her daughter a comforting hand and tell stories for the duration of the flight, with John smiling at them both the whole time. The crying started all over again once they had to take a second flight, this one from their intermediate destination to Southern California, and by the time they were landed, with all their belongings in their possession, and outside of the airport getting their rental car, both parents were absolutely tired of hearing the crying, and were very thankful that they'd be spared from it for a little while.

Then again, things never worked out as they were supposed to, and when John and Jade tried to cuddle up together to sleep that night, they had to figure in the presence of Casey, who flat-out refused to sleep in a bed that wasn't hers unless her parents were with her. And since she was a cuddler just like her parents, that meant that they didn't get to enjoy each other's company like they had wanted to.

Casey just so happened to have an amazing grandfather who was willing to watch her for a few hours after she woke everyone in the room up early in the morning, just so that her parents could get close and sleep a bit longer before they started on their adventure for the day. Even though it was the beginning of a weekend, the parks weren't expected to be too terribly crowded due to it being the end of September, which meant shorter lines and less time having to push through people to do stuff.

This trip, flawlessly planned down to the last detail, would have been terrible if there hadn't been someone to watch Casey for any of it, because she was too little to ride some of the rides, and it was the ones she didn't meet the height requirement for that John and Jade absolutely wanted to go on. So of course, her grandpa would watch her and take her on other rides that she could ride while her parents went on the ones she couldn't. Because she was at the age where she could recognize words that were on signs, she knew that there was a ride that had her name in it, and therefore she dragged her grandpa on that silly little train countless times in a row. He didn't mind it, because it meant she was happy and her being happy meant that her parents got to be happy.

By the time the day was mostly over, Casey had ridden just a few rides with her parents, mostly the little ones near the entrance of the park, and a few more rides with her grandpa, although she did tend to stick to that train. John and Jade, on the other hand, had gone on as many rides as they could have managed to, and regrouped with the others wet and very obviously high on adrenaline. "I think the longest we had to wait was like half an hour, but that's okay, because we rode Splash Mountain three times today and each time Jade screamed like she was going to die," John said all in one breath, wrapping his arm around Jade's waist. "But it's okay because I thought I was going to die when we rode some of those rollercoasters. Especially the one in the dark. What was that one called again?"

"Space Mountain, John. That's what it was called. That's the same name I've told you every time you've asked." Jade nuzzled her slightly wet cheek up against John's and grinned. "Now that we're all together now, shall we go on something that all four of us could handle?"

"Is it the Casey train?" the little girl asked, tilting her head and putting her hands over her mouth in a surprised gesture. "I like the Casey train."

Jade was just about to say that they could indeed ride that train, but a shake of the head from the older man in the group made her rethink that. "No, how about we take the big train around a couple times looking at the other rides, and decide from there? There's lots of stuff we could all ride, but we need to decide what we're gonna pick."

Five minutes later, before they even boarded the train, Casey had her eyes set on the next ride she wanted to embark on. "That one," she proudly said, pointing at a facade on one of the buildings, that was colored and patterned in a way that was appealing to her three-year-old mind. "I wanna ride that one."

"Casey, can we not ride that one? That may give Poppop a headache, and you don't want to do that to him, do you?" Although John had a hard time remembering the names of some of the rides, due to their similarities to others, he recognized that particular ride just from having seen pictures of it that were accompanied by horror stories. "Let's pick something less...annoying."

"John, don't lie to the girl. I'll be fine if we ride it, trust me. It's just a simple ride with a repetitive song and it's no big deal. In fact, I'll even sit next to her and hold her hand through the ride, if you so want." For being an old man, John's dad simply was the coolest, and his approach to the situation meant that there really was no other choice than to get in line for it's a small world, even with Jade looking for some excuse not to have to ride it and John trying to be insistent that it would end badly for them.

What they didn't expect was to end up standing in line behind a single rider, one who Casey, at one point, mistook for her dad. "Oh? Who are you, little cutie?" the woman asked once she noticed the little girl poking her leg. "Are you lost?"

"Sorry, she belongs to us. Guess she thinks you're me." John went to grab Casey away from the woman, but happened to notice the woman's face, which he ended up just staring at for a second, before looking at the rest of her. She was shorter than him, but aside from her height, feminine features, and slightly different hair style, it was like he was looking into a mirror. "I guess I can see why," he remarked after a moment. "You look strikingly like me."

"I could say the same back to you, sir."

The awkwardness between the two continued as they got on the ride, because the woman ended up in the seat right in front of the group. For the duration of the ride, with Casey trying to sing along with the song and Jade trying to bury her face in shame of even riding it, John and his dad both focused on the strange woman, one because of the extreme similarities between them and the other because he was trying to come up with a way to explain the situation. Mister Egbert found that explanation as they were getting off the ride, when he curiously asked the woman, "By any chance, is your name Jane?"

"Yes, sir, it certainly is. How do you know that?" She checked herself to make sure her name wasn't exposed anywhere, during which time the elder Egbert pulled his wallet from his pocket and got a picture out from it.

"How do I know? Because," he said, looking at the picture before handing it to her, "you look an awful lot like my daughter I haven't seen in years."

Both John and the woman gave him the most shocked look they could manage (while looking exactly the same as they did). "Your daughter?" The words escaped their mouths at the same time, before they looked at each other again. And again. "No...you mean?"

"I think we're having ourselves a bit of an Egbert family reunion."

* * *

**A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on February 20th, 2013.**


	11. Act II Part V

**Act II Part V**

_Let's Make New Friends_

"Why didn't you ever tell me I had a sister?" John gave his dad an incredulous look over the table, where, on the other side, the elder Egbert and Jane were both sitting. "I thought I was just abandoned on your doorstep. That's what you told me!"

"John, it's a long story as to why I didn't let you know about her. And that's something I'd rather not get into while we're sitting in such a public place. I have no idea how many of these people are looking for a trashy romance novel-esque story." He squeezed Jane's hand as he spoke, as if he was still having a hard time believing that the woman was really sitting right next to him. "Shouldn't we find Jade and Casey now, anyway?"

As if they were the same person, both of his kids shook their heads at the same time. "No, dad, you're going to tell us this story. I'm sure Jade's having fun riding rides with Casey right now," John said, while Jane looked pleadingly at her father.

"I'll just give an abridged version, how about that?" The suggestion appealed to both of the dark-haired people he was with, and he took in a deep breath. "Your mother was a bit crazy. Convinced she was the heiress to a certain baked goods company that I will not refer to by name. We were happy together, raising you both, but one day she just snapped, shutting me out of her life. I begged and pleaded to be let back in—and she responded by shoving you, John, into my arms and telling me that she had no son nor no husband. And from then on, I vowed to never think about her or the daughter she had stolen from me again."

"What about the picture you have of me, then?"

"That, Jane, is from the last time I had any sort of correspondence with her. I sent a letter containing a picture of John, so she could see how he had grown, and in return, she sent a picture of you." He sighed, giving her a tearful look. "I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to see you again. I was convinced I had lost my little girl."

She stood up and hugged him after he dissolved into tears from saying that. "Don't worry daddy," she whispered, much like a young girl would, "you'll never lose me again. So maybe I'm older than you remember, but I'm still your daughter, and you can baby me all you want to make up for lost time. It'll be fine."

"I still don't understand why I wasn't ever told I have a twin sister." John also stood up and joined in the hugging, but focused more on snuggling his sister than his dad. "I would have spent so much time searching for her..."

"That's exactly why I didn't tell you about her, John. I didn't want you looking. For all intents and purposes, you didn't exist to your mother, and if you had somehow found Jane, it would have spelled trouble for us both." He sniffled, tears still streaming down his cheeks. "So what happened was best, and this fortunate meeting here at Disney is the greatest thing to ever happen to the Egbert family, hands down."

"I know this is a weird thing to say, especially at a moment like this, but I'm not quite ready to be considered part of the Egbert family. It's just too sudden of a change, dad." She pushed her face against his teary cheek, and he let out a small sigh. "Yeah, I know, you want it to be like nothing was ever between us. But something was, and that something is making it hard for me to accept the fact that I have a dad and a brother and..."

John tried to finish what his sister was saying. "...you need a moment to accept the fact that we're real and here?"

"No, more like, I have to accept the fact that my mother was more crazy than I thought, that she wasn't just some psychotic woman who believed she was the heiress to the Betty Crocker company."

"Please, _please_, don't refer to that company by its name." Their dad's voice was low as he said that, but it quivered with sadness. "I'd rather not hear about again it for as long as I live."

"Understandable. You'd think I'd not want to hear it either, but the food that company makes is too good to let someone crazy ruin it for me." Jane gave a soft laugh, but hugged her dad tighter. "I'm so glad to have you now, both of you. Finally I'll be able to pick up the pieces of my broken childhood and have a life with my family...unless, of course, you're just going to leave again."

"Jane, we have to leave eventually. John's got a life of his own, and so do I. But we'll stay a bit longer than we planned, just for catching up, how does that sound?"  
She smiled and pulled her face away from her dad's, just so he could see the smile on her lips. "I love the sound of that, daddy. It makes me so happy..."

"Then it's settled. We'll be here an extra week or so." John, who had been intently listening to his sister's voice just to become used to it, began to shake his head rather violently at the suggestion his father had made. "Oh, what seems to be the problem? Don't you want to stay in sunny southern California a bit longer?"

"Yeah, staying here is nice, but what about Jade? She's, you know, kind of wrapped up in baby things."

"Baby things?" Jane's eyes widened from behind her glasses. "Hasn't she been riding rides? Doesn't she know that, if you're expecting, you shouldn't be riding anything?"

John's hand met his forehead a lot harder than he had planned it to, but he felt both so stupid and rather embarrassed in that moment that the pain didn't bother him. "No, Jane, she's not pregnant. Believe me, we've dealt with that _enough_ that if she was, again, we'd be sitting at home, again, waiting for the inevitable miscarriage, again."

"So then what did you mean by her being wrapped up in baby things?"

"He means that, while I'm here, I'm bailing out on babysitting and taking care of everything baby-related for our friends." As if she had appeared out of thin air, Jade was standing right beside the trio, with her hand firmly grasping Casey's. "And, if what I heard was right, we're going to be staying here a bit longer? Okay, fine with me, but someone else gets to watch my daughter now. I'm done riding that train for the next few hours."

"Okay, fair enough." While John did appreciate the time with his dad and sister, he wanted to spend some alone with his wife. "How about this, we go ride something, and Casey can stay with her grandpa and aunt and they can all bond and get to know each other." He looked at Jade for her reaction, which was a weary smile and to let go of Casey's hand. The little girl instantly attached herself to her grandfather's leg. "There, I think that sounds good." Jane nodded in agreement, her dad ruffled Casey's hair a bit, and the little girl giggled. "We'll meet up with you when we're done, I guess. See you all later."

They linked hands and walked away, seemingly happy, but once they had gotten away a bit, Jade lost her smile and simply glared at John. "I understand that finding your sister is a cool thing, but you are ruining our family vacation by spending all this time with her and not with me and Casey!" She jerked her hand out of John's grasp and put it behind her back. "What about us, huh? Don't you love me?"

"Of course I love you, Jade! I'm just really happy to know I have a sister and—hey don't look at me like that!" He noticed that she was rolling her eyes at him, and her behavior bothered him. "You are being a child right now, you know. This is not how you should be."

"Well sorry for being upset that my husband is choosing to spend our family vacation with someone who isn't family!"

"Jane _is_ family! She's not you or dad or Casey, but she is family and I'm just now getting to know her!" He forcefully grabbed Jade's arm, which she pulled away from him, hitting an innocent passerby in the process. "What is your problem?"

She, after apologizing to the man she hit, gave him an incredulous and slightly offended look. "Did you seriously just ask that after what I said? I've already told you!"

"And I'm asking again because you gave a bad reason! You're acting like I'm cheating on you with her, which I'm definitely not! She is my twin sister, and that means she is family!" He grabbed her again, and this time she didn't pull away. "Now stop being so grumpy about this."

"But John, I wanted this trip to strengthen our relationship, and instead it feels like it's tearing us apart..."

"Why does our relationship need strengthening? Everything's been fine between us, hasn't it?" The way she tearfully looked at him, all hints of anger gone, and shook her head worried him, but he realized not long after that the middle of an amusement park wasn't exactly the best place for the conversation they were about to have.

So, after trying to enjoy the rest of the night with her and later the rest of the family, he brought the topic up again when they were back in their hotel room, with Casey as their only company, as his dad had gone out to a late meal with Jane to do even more catching up. "Now that we're, well, mostly alone," he said, motioning towards Casey, who ran around the room with her arms outstretched like plane wings, "tell me why we need strength here."

"John, I know what you want out of this relationship. You want more kids. You always have. And I...I'm not able to do that for you." Jade sniffled, rubbing a fallen tear off her cheek. "And I guess that I'm scared you're going to leave me because I can't have babies for you. Your sister will convince you to stay here, and you'll meet some beach babe and be with her..."

"That's just silly. You had Casey, and that little girl is enough for me." Cue them both looking at her, while she was still pretending to be an airplane until she tired herself out and flopped on the floor. "Yeah, one beautiful and intelligent daughter given to me by the love of my life is enough. No need for some stupid and fake beach woman here."

"Well, if Casey's enough, why did we try again?" Jade's voice was steady, but she was speaking slowly and much lower than normal. "Why did you force me to go through it again, if one's enough? We were both so excited to give her a sibling and we were both crushed when we lost it, just like the three before her."

He sighed, hugging her tightly as he began to cry, tears hitting the rim of his glasses. "One's enough now because it's obvious another isn't happening. Yeah, another would be cool, but every time we've tried, other than with Casey, it's ended in heartbreak. I'm done trying and breaking our hearts even more. So don't worry that I'll leave you because you can't have kids...because I won't ask you to ever try again. Like I said, one's enough."

"You know what Dave said to me after he found out about the last miscarriage? He said that the world simply isn't ready for another Egbert baby. No dead baby jokes, no rude comments. He just sat with me and let me cry." Jade was sobbing hard, wiping her face on the sleeve of John's shirt. "And then you just told me that we'd get along just fine without it, and I thought that you were saying that to be a jerk, but now I realize you were saying that because you were done making me suffer. And that itself must have taken a lot of strength, but we still need more to deal with these problems my infertility causes."

"Why is mommy crying?" Casey piped up, her little head lifting from the floor where she lay. "And why is daddy crying too? Did we lose the peanut again?"

The adults locked eyes for a moment, before the crying intensified. "I'm gonna tell that peanut to come back," she continued, "because you get sad 'cuz it's gone."

"Casey, babe, shush about the peanut. Why don't you come here and give your mommy kisses, because she's very sad." John pat the bed next to where him and Jade were seated. "And then you can give me kisses too."

"Okay!" Jumping from the floor to the bed in a matter of seconds, the little girl began to cover her parents in small kisses, before getting distracted by the hotel room's door opening. "Poppop's back!" she squeaked, scampering away from her parents to the door. "Is he gonna take me to ride the Casey train again? I like the Casey train."

Much to the little girl's dismay, it wasn't her grandfather at the door. It was Jane, with a bouquet of flowers in hand. "Dad said that this was where you were staying, and he told me that it should be all right for me to come in," she explained, trying not to look at the crying figures on the bed. "I just came to apologize for whatever I've done wrong this early in my relationship with you, Jade, but I guess now's not a good time."

"Are those flowers?" Casey asked, reaching for one of the petals that hung over the plastic covering. "Mommy likes flowers. Daddy buys her them all the time and she gets happy when he gives them to her."

"Yes they are indeed flowers, you sweet child you. But they're for your mommy and that means no touching them." Jane smiled down at the little girl, who retracted her hand as quickly as she could. "Could you maybe get her to come grab these?"

"Nope, can't, mommy says I can't tell her what to do. It's not nice."

The door opened a bit wider and the elder Egbert came into the room, escorting Jane in so he could close the door behind them. "Casey, you've got to do your auntie here a favor. Please. Do it for her and for your Poppop."

"Fine, but just 'cuz I love Poppop!" Casey curled her hands into fists, marched over to where her parents sat, and began beating on Jade's leg. "Mommy, Poppop needs you!"

At the mention of the older man, the two pulled themselves apart and tried to look instantly happy. It was John who first looked to the door, and saw his sister and dad standing there. "Oh, what a surprise. I thought you'd be out later. What's up? Why did you bring flowers?"

"I'm here to make amends with your wife, since I seem to have hurt her without intending to."

"Jane, there's no need to apologize to me," Jade quietly said, before standing and approaching the woman. "The problems that I had weren't so much to do with you as they were to do with myself and John and aspects of our relationship that have needed work. These flowers are really pretty, though...would you mind too terribly if I kept them?"

"I brought them for you, so I'd be hurt if you didn't keep them!" The flowers moved from Jane's hands to Jade's, and the two smiled at each other. "I'm glad you're not mad at me, but I am a tad bit curious about what problems you and John could possibly have. He's only spoken positively about you in our conversations!"

Sitting himself down on the other bed and having Casey join him, the older Egbert made it clear that he was distracting the child so that they could discuss what Jane wanted to know. "Well, um, you see, I'd rather keep that between me and him," Jade replied, silently thanking her father-in-law for doing what he had done, but knowing it was not needed right at the moment. "Married person problems, you know?"

"Do I ever know! Sometimes you just have to cry and hug it out with the one you love, I understand." Jane gave Jade a small shoulder pat. "I do it maybe once a month whenever I'm actually with my husband. Speaking of him, he's out of town now, but maybe he'll come back before you have to leave. You are staying a bit longer than planned, correct?"

"It's the right thing to do, so yeah." As much as Jade didn't want to admit it, she knew what she was saying was correct. Jane _was_ family, and it would just be cruel to John if he didn't get to spend more time with his sister and, maybe, the one she called hers. "I'm kind of curious about what kind of man a woman like you could get yourself. Is he as down-to-earth as you are?"

"Not even close, I'm afraid. He's much more exotic and...well, you'll see when you get to meet him."

"Wow, so not only do I have a perfectly normal sister, but she's living a perfectly normal life and has been even without me," John said, looking at the two standing women and smiling. "I wonder what your life would be like if we had grown up together, Jane. It definitely would be different from what you've got now."

She nodded in agreement, before adding, "Dad and I were actually talking about that over dinner! Based on what he's told me about your life, and what's happened in mine, I don't think I'd be even close to the same person I am right now if I had known of you before this—and that's okay. This was how it was meant to work out, and I'm thankful for it. Now I just hope that everything else that needs to happen happens just like it should."

* * *

Over the course of the next few days, a lot of the family's time was spent together, whether it was going back to the park to ride more rides or hitting all sorts of local shops and restaurants at Jane's suggestion. It was all in the effort to get to know her better, and to let her know them, but it was also an attempt to make the time pass as painlessly as possible before Jane's husband (who she refused to name, saying he was going to get to introduce himself rather than her introduce him) came back from wherever he was. His location was yet another aspect to the mysterious man that they were left in the dark about, as all she would say was that he was on a trip somewhere.

Then, on what was planned on being their last full day in California, they were awoken with the news that finally, Jane's husband had come back from wherever he was, and that he would be there to meet them before they left. They chose to all congregate at one of the nearby restaurants, one within walking distance of the hotel, just in case the man didn't live up to the standards of her dad or brother so they could return to their "home" with relative ease.

It turned out that, once again, it wasn't John or his father that had the problems, but rather Jade, who took one look at the guy and felt some sort of shame she hadn't felt in years and years creep over her. "I know him," she whispered into John's ear, her voice shaking a bit, "and I don't think this is going to end well if he remembers me."

"How do you know him?" he asked back, just as quietly as she was. But before she got the chance to respond, Jane clasped her hands together and gave a very brief introduction as to who the newcomer was, and he, wearing short khaki shorts and a loose green button-up, stood and took a deep bow.

"G'day, everyone. Name's Jake. I guess you're all here because of Janey, which is really swell if you ask me. It's about time Jane gets some excitement in her life that doesn't involve spiders in the shower in Australia." He laughed, making everyone else awkwardly chuckle, but no one responded more awkwardly than Jade, her hands shaking with how much she did not want to be there. "Oh, looks like you're a bit nervous. What's the matter, doll?"

She took a deep breath, and with Casey grabbing her hand and petting it to try to calm her mom down, she spoke. "I can't believe you're married to Jane. Out of all the guys who could have been married to my husband's long-lost sister, why did it have to be you?"  
"Have to be me? Do you think that Jane's too good for a wild guy used to roughing it in the wilderness? Or is there some other problem?" Over the rim of his rectangular glasses, Jake focused on Jade's face, and as he looked at her, his eyes widened a bit. "Wait a damn second, I think I know what your problem is. It's a dumb problem, but it's reasonable. Is that you, Harley?"

Like they had thought the same thing, both of the twins looked at their significant other and asked, "You two know each other?"

"It's like a bad memory come back to haunt me," Jade said, right as Jake answered with, "Hell yeah we do!" The conflicting answers had everyone present scratching their heads, until there was clarification. "When I came back from being away for a year, Jade here was the one who had to put up with my shenanigans and get me through school. She was a real blessing, and I wish we had kept in touch after we graduated. Funny how we end up here, together again."

"I don't want to hear that nice stuff, Jake. You know what happened between us, and why we didn't keep in touch."

He covered his mouth in apparent shock, before letting out a gasp that was clearly faked. "You mean, you do remember all those things I did to you?"

"You refused to take me to our senior prom because you were going to go hiking that night and didn't want to have to reschedule. I'm fairly certain I'll never forget what you did." There was tenseness in the air caused by their banter, and John was holding on to Jade's arm to restrain her from attempting to lunge at Jake. "Now answer me, why are you, a classless jerk, married to such a sweet woman like Jane?"

"Because I love her and she loves me, and she's willing to deal with all my quirks. I'm sure she's a way better fit for me that you ever could have been." He wrapped Jane up in a hug, planting many kisses all over her face and neck, in a display that forced John to have to tighten his grip on his wife's arm a bit tighter. Once the kissing stopped, and Jade's rage cooled off a bit, Jake added more to his answer: "I did a lot of soul-searching after graduation, and I realized that the girl I had shoved into my high school plans would never be the one I'd marry, and I'd need to find some gal who was looking for an adventure. And that's when I found Jane. We quite literally ran right into each other, walking down the same path going different ways."

Jade didn't bother responding, choosing instead to pick Casey up and walk outside holding her in an attempt to calm herself down. "Sorry about that," John apologized, looking from his sister to Jake and back to his sister. "She gets like that sometimes, and it's best to just let her cool down on her own. Woman things, you know?"

"I don't think she likes us very much..." Jane set her gaze to the floor and sighed. "We can't help it, I guess, but it's certainly not her being a woman that's making her be so...snippy towards us. I'm just going to accept the fact that Jade does not like me or Jake, and we'll leave it at that."

"Don't say that!" John shook his head at his sister's words. "She's just anxious to get home, and with all this stuff it's been hard for her. I'm sure she'll get along with you fine if you ever decide to come out and visit us."

"Sorry, chum, but it's not going to happen if your wife can't forgive me for being a stupid teenage boy way back when. It's not like I'd have treated her the same way if me and her had dated as adults..." Much like his wife had moments before, Jake sighed, before running one hand through his hair. "She's stuck on what I did in the past, that's that, and I'm not going to spend any more time with her unless I have to."

John immediately chose to look at Jane, who was looking back up and in his direction, tears welling up in her eyes. Anger bubbled inside of him, which he chose to ignore, simply because there was no point in getting mad about things out of his control. By fate and bad luck, this had happened, and he didn't need to make a bad situation worse. "I understand," he muttered, before choosing to leave the restaurant as well, finding his wife and daughter outside, Jade crying much like Jane had just been about to be. "Oh, what are you crying for? You just made things terrible between me and my sister."

"These aren't sad tears, asshole," Jade snapped back, as she continued to cry. "These are happy tears. Relieved tears. I've got you, I've got Casey, I've got everything I need, and seeing Jake there being happy with your sister made me realize that. I used to really love that guy, you know. He was my everything, and then he broke my heart and left. I moved on, found you, and fell in love again, and he did the same with Jane. That's amazing. He's a dick, but that's amazing."

"So you just made things incredibly awkward between all of us because...?"

"Because I love you, fuckass."

Casey playfully covered her ears at the sound of the second expletive, before scolding her mom for saying such a bad thing. "Mommy, love is good, but bad words are bad!"

"Sorry, baby, I didn't mean to say that around you. Mommy just got really excited about how much she loves your daddy, and nothing's going to change that." Sniffling a couple times to collect herself, Jade eventually put the little girl on the ground (who then chose to instantly cling to one of John's legs) and pace a bit. "Now what do I do? I've given a terrible impression in there, and I already know Jane doesn't care for me, and Jake...yeah, this is bad. Do we just leave?"

"No, Poppop's here! I like Poppop!" Even if Casey hadn't squealed that at just the mention of leaving her grandfather behind for a bit, the two adults knew that leaving wasn't actually a viable option. The only thing there really was for them to do was to go back inside the restaurant, rejoin the others, and apologize for everything. Jade did it with a believable smile, and the little issues that had transpired between her and the others seemed to be smoothed over for that time.

Everyone was able to be cordial towards each other for the rest of the time they were together, and by the time they were gathered at the airport, ready to separate back to their own lives again, there seemed to be no hard feelings present. Hugs were being shared between everyone, Casey was giving lots of kisses to her aunt and uncle that she didn't really know, and, most importantly, the siblings and their father were able to group together for what would be the last time for a long while and cry on each other's shoulders, Jane crying on her brother's shoulder more than anything. It took a good hour or so to finally say goodbye to the two California lovers, and as the group of four began their way through airport security, they could hear them screaming farewells at them—causing everyone, especially the elder Egbert, to shed a few tears.

Once those four were all cleared to be in the main terminal, they separated even further, since John's dad was returning to his home rather than his son's. That caused more crying, and a whole lot of screaming, since Casey was definitely attached to her Poppop, and she did not want him leaving. "I'll come see you for Christmas," he promised, ruffling her dark hair and making her smile a bit, "and I'll bring you lots of gifts. But I've got to go home now."

"Thanks, dad, for letting us have this trip. It ended up being pretty amazing." John, even with the evidence of having been crying, grinned and hugged his father. "I can't believe we met Jane and got to spend this time with her."

"That wasn't part of the plan, but if it was to happen anywhere, where better than at Disney? It really is a place where dreams come true." The older man gave everyone one last hug and kiss, before taking his suitcase and walking the complete opposite direction in the airport from where they needed to go.

The trip home was much like the one out to California, filled with a crying child who needed comforting, and absolutely no comfort. But, instead of having to go to a hotel to try to sleep (where said crying child wouldn't sleep in her own bed), they were back at their apartment where everything was going to return to normal, and that meant getting their first good night's sleep in two weeks, which, as soon as they got home and everything unpacked, they all went into their beds with the intent of sleeping.

There was a knock at the door sometime that night, which woke both John and Jade up. They had drifted off for just an hour or so, reveling in the comfort of being in their bed with only each other as company, so the knocking wasn't welcomed at all. Neither was the presence of the child being pushed at them when they opened the door. "We just got home," Jade said with an accompanying eyeroll when she saw the child. "This isn't the time for us to be babysitting. I'll do it tomorrow, okay? Right now, we're getting some sleep." She motioned for John to close the door, but the person standing on the other side just pushed the kid more into the apartment. "Didn't you hear me, Tavros? I'm not babysitting Snow tonight."

"What am I supposed to do?" There was panic in Tavros' voice as he spoke, and that was when the two noticed that his arms were shaking as he held Snow in front of them. "I don't want to have to take her with us..."

"Take her with you where? The store? You've probably done that a million times now, so just do it. We're going to bed. Come back in the morning." That was when he stepped into their home, right as someone a floor or two down could be heard screaming; he visibly tensed up when they all heard it. "What was that? Do you know what that was?"

"That's why I'm here." He bit his lip and paused for a second before he continued to answer Jade's question. "I need to just drop Snow off here so that I can get Vriska over to the hospital, since, uh, she's in a lot of pain and..." He swallowed down hard then, biting his lip once more and actually pushing Snow into Jade's arms. "Just for tonight. Everything will be better tomorrow."

Another scream traveled up the stairs, and Jade realized that she couldn't argue against him, so she willingly wrapped her arms around the little girl. "Okay, fine, but only for tonight. Come get her in the morning." He handed off a bag of necessities that he had brought upstairs with him, thanked the couple several times, and, after he heard more screaming, went back down the stairs from which he came. As John closed the door, Jade sighed and looked at the girl that was now in her arms. "I can't believe I just agreed to watch Snow. We seriously just got home a few hours ago."

"Yes, well, she looks a bit sleepy. Maybe that means we'll get to have some cuddling time tonight before we fall asleep ourselves." Even though he was very obviously upset with the situation, John gave his wife a suggestive smile and made her laugh. "See, we can make the best of this."

"We can, sure, but I'm still stuck watching Snow."

At the mention of her name, the little girl waved her arms around and babbled a bit, looking up at Jade with her big brown eyes. "At least it's her and not a newborn. Snow's pretty chill, but I'm sure her little brother or sister isn't so calm."

A realization dawned on Jade as John finished his thought, and she shook her head at her own stupidity. "How could I have forgotten about that? That's all I was dealing with before we left, how unprepared they were for Snow's new sibling, and now we're back and they're probably just as unprepared and that's why I'm watching her. That's why we were hearing Vriska screaming."

"No, that can't be it. I'm pretty sure that he would have told us that she was having the baby if it was the case. Now let's just put Snow to bed, because I really want to get to wrap my arms around you again." He playfully smacked Jade's rear before walking away, leaving her to stare into Snow's eyes for a few minutes before she did as he suggested.

When they were woken up at some early hour because of their friends' daughter screaming, both of their phones had two messages on them. One was a long explanation, beginning with yet another apology, of the events of the previous night: at about the same time they had been getting home, Tavros and Vriska had been just sitting in their bedroom, watching one of his favorite episodes of one of his favorite shows, when things started to go bad. When it became apparent that, if they stayed where they were, things would get even worse, he had taken Snow up to the apartment where she ended up spending the night, before he took Vriska to the hospital. That was where the second text message came into play, with a slightly blurry but still good quality picture of mother and new baby in a hospital bed attached to it.

* * *

As a stark contrast to his sister, Dante would choose to do anything _but_ play video games, which made him very weird when compared to her. His parents completely understood, and didn't force him into playing Pokémon at a young age like they had done with Snow, instead letting him do his own thing with whichever parent wasn't occupied with playing games with his sister.

"'tory time!" he whined one night as he was being tucked into his bed, pointing at a book on the table next to him. "More 'tory, pease."

"I can do that for you, kiddo. Your mom's playing games with Snow right now, so it's only fair that you get story time." His dad grabbed the book, sat on the floor right next to the bed, and opened it to the first page. "Oh, this is a good one. Look here, do you know what that says?" When the boy shook his head, his dad read it out loud to him. "It says, 'This book was made specially for Dante Nitram-Serket, by John, Jade, and Casey Egbert.' That means they care so much about you that they made you a book. Isn't that cool?"

Dante smiled and clapped his hands. "Is there t'ucks in 'tory? T'ucks cool!" As he grew up, reading that book was something he would do on his own, no longer relying on either of his parents to have to read it to him, and the more he read it, the more he realized that maybe he was meant to be less like his family, who he loved very much, and more like the family who made the book for him.

He learned to read each of the book's pages long before his sister learned to play Pokémon by herself, overshadowing her with his intelligence. She didn't take kindly to her younger brother being smarter than her, and refused to let him have his book while she was around; because of this, he would sit in their shared bedroom and read while she was out spending video game time with their parents. He was okay with that, since being alone suited him better than being with them. He did prefer to be with his second family, the ones who opened him up to reading with the gift they gave him when he was young, however.

"Is everything in this book really true?" he asked one day, after reading it out loud to the residents of the apartment two floors up from his. "I sure hope it's not."

"Well, we may have made a few of the things up," John said, looking at the boy who was still staring in awe at the pages of the book, "but for the most part, everything in it is true."

"Even the beginning? I don't think spells work by just saying 'let's make magic'." The serious tone to his voice made everyone laugh, and instead of him taking it as them laughing at his words, he became offended and stormed out of the apartment, taking his book with him, and went down back to the home where he belonged, where he walked in on his parents and sister, sitting at the table, bonding over a stupid video game. He sat down in the chair next to his dad, put his book in front of him, and started silently re-reading its contents, going over every word like he had a million times before. Even though it wasn't new material, he became so engrossed in it that he didn't even notice the side hug that his dad wrapped him in.

"Put that book away, Dante," Snow hissed, looking over her game to see him reading. "Stupid Casey drew me weird in it."

"Come on, Snow, just let him read and you can try to beat Red. It's what you need to do up there." When the girl refused to play until the book disappeared, Vriska had to take a deep breath, rub a bit at the sides of her head, and look over at Tavros for support. He shrugged and continued with his hug, leaving her no choice but to take the game from Snow's hands. "Okay, new plan. We're all going to go sit on the couch and watch a show."

Dante closed his book at the sound of that, finally noticing his dad's hug but giving it no real attention. "Can it be the one you were watching in this? I wanna see that."

"It's been a while since I've watched through all of Avatar, so yeah, we can definitely do that." Although he knew it was only because of the important event documented in the book that sparked his son's interest in his favorite show, Tavros was rather proud to be able to get not only him but his daughter to sit down and begin watching something that meant a whole lot to him. It meant a lot to Vriska, too, because it finally gave her a reason to rewatch the damn show that she had been trying to get into to pass the time while the Egberts had been on their Disney vacation all those years before.

* * *

**A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on June 16th, 2013.**

**And with that we bid our time following the Egbert family adieu. What comes next? Well, the saga of Dave Strider, of course! But before we get to that, there's another Intermission that we need to address... :)**


	12. Intermission II

**Intermission II**

_Let's Have a Good Time_

Replacing as good of a teammate as Tavros had been wasn't going to be easy for Aradia—after all, she had won several long campaigns in Dungeons and Dragons with him by her side. But when he, and the entire other team, left for greener pastures after years of playing, she needed to find someone to fill in for him to hone her skills more. What she didn't expect was her new partner, who happened to be the guy she had been dating for a while, to bring his own group of dedicated D &amp; D players with him.

Sollux, Nepeta, and Equius may not have been anything as good as Tavros, Vriska, and Terezi had been, but they were decent enough to play with. And the more they played, still hanging out in Vriska's mom's basement although her daughter was long gone, the better they all got at it, until it was virtually impossible to tell the difference between the campaigns; the only real change was there weren't lawyer demons and pirate wenches, but rather hackers and characters who were skilled with riding animals.

The years passed by, and the venue changed from the basement Aradia had known all too well to a spare bedroom in the house her and Sollux now shared. Visiting that spacious basement for the last time had made her cry, not only because it was the changing of something she had grown used to, but because it was like slamming the door on part of her past that she didn't want to lose, as well as taking some of the last memories of her old friends away. Since they had left, none of them had even bothered contacting her, so she had no idea what was going on with them. All she did know was her Thursday night dungeon crawls were moving to an above-ground room that wasn't at some virtual stranger's house.

Turns out that their D &amp; D playing was the only thing stopping the house from being sold, and it was mere weeks after relocating that the house they once knew so dearly was owned by someone they definitely didn't know. Other than the location change, nothing else was different in their playing, and the four of them became just as close as the original four (and the four before them, substituting Tavros for Eridan, before them).

All it took was a ringing of the doorbell the week before Christmas for everything to change. It had been over nine years since graduation, six years since the original exodus from the group, but it took all of five seconds—spent looking through a window and rushing to open the door—to erase all evidence of Vriska and Tavros spending any time away from the town they once called home. "What are you two doing here?" Aradia, the one who had gotten the door, asked, grabbing the two into separate hugs and making mental notes of everything that was different about them. "How did you find this place? Where are you staying? This is such a surprise!"

"We're here visiting, duh," Vriska replied, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Although she had a smile on her face, there was something off about her, something that seemed upset that she was quite obviously trying to hide. "Found this place with the help of some friends, and we'll be staying here if you don't mind."

"Don't mind? I haven't prepared a thing!"

Tavros, grabbing Vriska and holding her closely after Aradia's frantic hugging was over, gave an awkward laugh that was meant to seem cheerful but, like Vriska's smile, was disguising something less happy. "You didn't have to. Your friends took care of everything."

"We sure did." Standing in the doorway to the dining room that Aradia had rushed out of, Sollux, Equius, and Nepeta all watched the three at the front door. "I figured that you'd stress yourself out if you knew I'd invited them to come stay with us for a while, so we took care of it. That's okay though, isn't it?" It was such a Sollux thing to do, hiding a surprise this big until it revealed itself, and she was so happy to have him around. "I see those happy tears there, Aradia. Go on, cry."

"Cry? I think I'm going to pass out from the excitement!" Aradia had streams of tears running down her cheeks as she went from hugging the newcomers to attacking the man who had set everything up. "This is such a great surprise! And just in time for the holidays!"

"Yeah, it's like that was the plan all along," Sollux said, before grabbing Aradia to calm her down. "Except, ahem, the plan was very nearly destroyed not too long ago, now wasn't it?"

The attention turned from the hysterical woman to the duo standing just inside the front door. "We're really going to bring that up now?" Vriska asked, her voice lowering as she spoke. "I thought that maybe, just maybe, we could get through a couple hours before all that got brought up. We're tired from the drive here. Don't make us spill the details of the past few months right now, okay?"

"Past few months? I want to know how you've been for the past nine years!" Aradia broke free of Sollux's grip and rushed back to her friends, ushering them to the nearest couch before sitting across from them and putting her elbows on her knees and chin on her hands. "I can understand you're tired, but please, start talking. You're not going to be here all that long, are you?"

"For the next couple weeks, and we'll do enough talking to let you know everything, but please, don't make us talk—" Tavros tried to get Aradia to stop pestering them, but even his fiercest protest couldn't get her to stop staring at them expectantly. "—fine. It's not like Sollux doesn't already know part of it."

"Promised I wouldn't tell her, and so I didn't." Sollux, sitting down next to Aradia, gave a small shrug. "Besides, all I heard was that Vriska fell down some stairs and royally fucked up her knees. Big deal."

Also sitting down on the couch across from the visitors, Nepeta took one look at her old neighbor Tavros and his girlfriend and gave a sad smile. "I think there's more to it than the knees. I've seen pictures of Vriska, and I know that she doesn't normally look so...broken."

"An injury of that kind would break someone. Being unable to do anything but sit and be in pain would render anyone, no matter how strong, useless and broken. Don't assume there's anything else when there most likely isn't." Always the overprotective friend, Equius took his place right next to Nepeta and looked at the two across from them. "However, I used to know you fairly well, Tavros, and you seem to be just as broken as the woman you're with."

"Because I am." Tavros put a hand on Vriska's thigh as if he was trying to keep her safe, before continuing to speak. "And it's my fault that we're both so broken, kind of. I mean, it was me who pushed her down the stairs, but it was an accident..."

The four on the other side of the room gave a collective gasp. "You pushed her? How could you?" Aradia asked, taking the words right out of everyone else's mouths. "How could you hurt your girlfriend like that?"

"It was an accident, I said! It was dark and I got startled and the stairs happened to be right there!" He squeezed her leg tighter, and Vriska sniffled, breaking her strong appearance with tears and wide eyes. "It wasn't like I wanted to tear up her knees and kill our baby!"

Another collective gasp, but no words followed, allowing Vriska's soft crying to be heard by everyone. Finally, after a couple of minutes, Aradia spoke again. "Your baby? Why didn't any of us know about that fact?"

"We didn't want to bring it up with any of you until we came out here and we could surprise you." As Vriska's crying became louder, Tavros continued to speak. "But then that accident happened and it just became a really sore spot, and we almost didn't come because she's just a shell of herself, really. She insisted on coming, though, because she said it would be better to get away from home for a while." He let go of her leg and wrapped his arm around her to give her a hug, which she very obviously needed. "And this is why she didn't want to talk right away."

"I wouldn't have pressed the issue if I had known." Unsure of what course of action to take, Aradia just sat still, aside from changing her position from an expectant one to a concerned one, with her hands in her lap and her eyes focusing anywhere but her friends. "That's really tragic and sad to hear about after being so excited."

"You don't even understand..." Vriska said, her voice cracking with sadness. "You don't know what it's like to hear what happened and remember it, to remember the pain of both knees being absolutely fucked and—and the even worse pain of learning your baby died because you fucking fell down stairs and forced her to come into a world she wasn't ready for and...fuck!" She was crying incredibly hard as she went on. "You don't know what it's like to hold a dead child in your arms, a kid you didn't want but you fucking loved, someone you would have given your life for but instead you took the life from. She took one breath, one fucking breath, and she was dead! And you wanted to hear everything right away and make me relive that again!"

"Vriska, calm down, it's okay. They didn't know." With as hard as he was hugging her, Tavros had hoped that he could get Vriska to stop crying, but it didn't help and he had to resort to standing up and getting in her face. "Hey, stop. Please. You're going to make me cry if you keep this up."

She dissolved into unintelligible babbling at that point, the occasional curse coming out that everyone could understand. From the other couch, everyone was looking between themselves, unsure of what to do in the situation they had found themselves in. "Maybe we should leave them be for a bit," Equius suggested, "and maybe when we return things will have calmed down."

"You think we should abandon them in their time of need? I think not, mister!" Nepeta replied, pressing her shoulder into her best friend's. "Besides, what if we're needed here and we're off elsewhere? That would be pretty wrong of us!"

"Wrong, yes. But maybe wrong is right in this situation."

"We're not leaving." Aradia, having gotten over her excitement and over-the-top feelings, got to her feet, and walked towards her friends. "Guys, do you need big hugs from someone who hasn't seen you in ages, or do you need your space?"

Both Tavros and Vriska offered her an arm for hugging, so she could hug them both at once. "We need our baby back, that's what we need," Tavros said in a solemn voice, barely loud enough for Aradia to hear him over Vriska's crying. "But since that won't happen, we just need to heal. We need to move past what happened, and that's going to be hard when she gets set off like this all the time."

"All the time?" Aradia's eyes widened. "That's got to suck. The Vriska I remember was so strong and moved past everything so easily."

Following several loud sniffles, Vriska was able to speak in her own defense: "I am strong, but I'm also broken. So, so broken. You don't know what it's like. You really don't."

"I know I don't, but I know that you know that your baby's fine wherever, uh, she is." She snuggled her upset friend a bit more, somewhat pushing Tavros away. "And I know you know that she wouldn't want you hurting like this."

"If she didn't want it, she wouldn't be dead." Instead of beginning to cry again, Vriska wrapped both her arms around Aradia the best she could. "We'd have brought our little baby with us, and you all would be so surprised and happy for us..."

"We would have been, but you know we're more than happy to just have you two here."

From where he had been pushed to with all the hugging, Tavros gave a small chuckle. "We figured that one of you would know how to cheer Vriska up, so that's why we ultimately decided that this trip would be worth it. Someone here would make her stop hurting so much about losing the little one, and you've managed to do it."

"What? Oh no, I'm just saying what needs to be said. I'm not trying to make her hurt less." Aradia broke away from Vriska and took several steps backwards. "I'm just being an inspirational friend to someone who lost something so important to her."

"And that's making her hurt less. One of our friends back home, her name is Jade, she's been through a lot of losing kids, but whenever she acts like she knows what it feels like to lose one like this, it just makes things worse. You're being so real, so honest, and it..." Tavros coughed to clear his throat from a lump that was beginning to form. "It means a lot. And you've made coming here worth it."

From on the other couch, where very little of the conversation was being heard, Sollux turned to the best friends he was sitting with. "Do you think this is going to work out? I didn't really know either of those two so I didn't know if bringing them here was a good idea."

"We only knew Tavros, really, and we've all heard what Aradia says about Vriska. Either their stay here will be like this the whole time, or there will be some fun." Nepeta shook Equius' head a bit as she spoke. "But either way, it was a good idea. They obviously need some good friends, and, well, the four of us are the best friends anyone could ever have."

"Okay, you better be right, because I paid for most of their trip and I'm going to be pissed if they made me waste my money." Although Sollux sounded upset, he spoke with a smile and his apparent lisp, and the others smiled in response. "Let's just hope they don't cry the whole time or else I may lose my shit."

* * *

The second day of the trip went much better than the first one, and the third day much better than that. It seemed that the stress of a cross-country road trip had made Vriska more emotionally unstable than she had normally been, and by the beginning of the fourth day she was almost the girl that Aradia had played D &amp; D with years before. The only real difference was her avoidance of having to move from wherever she had gotten comfortable, and that was excusable because of the braces on her legs holding her healing knees in place. Aside from that, it was just like the Vriska of old was there, as well as a socially-stronger Tavros with her.

They spent those two days after the first playing a lot as a group, everyone excited to see how the two who had left the game so long before would hold up in the time of new rules and characters. It was a steep learning curve, but they seemed to enjoy themselves even if they were absolutely overwhelmed with all the changes to the game that had brought them together.

That fourth day was the first one where they did something besides play, and it was only at Nepeta's insistence. She was very fond of her character, but she could only tolerate so much D &amp; D in so little time without losing her mind and wanting to quit the game. "Maybe we can go into town today and show them what's all changed," she suggested, as they sat around the table set up with all the gaming tools. "Maybe drive by the school, maybe go show them all the old hangouts, maybe show them where their parents live..."

"If it involves seeing my mom, I'm out." Vriska shook her head and frowned. "I didn't come here to visit her, and I don't plan on seeing even a hair on her head. She's a bitch and you all know it."

"She let us keep our campaigning in her basement for who knows how long after you left, so she's not that big of a bitch," Sollux snapped back, before quickly apologizing. "I mean, she was a bitch to you, from what we've heard, but she wasn't one to us."

"And because she was one to me, she doesn't get to see me. Easy as that."

Nepeta waved her arms to divert the attention back to herself. "Okay, so no stopping by your mom's new place, Vriska. But we can at least drive by. And maybe we could stop by Tavros' parents' house an—"

"No. Not this trip. I don't want to be compared to my brother for what I've done." This time it was Tavros shaking his head in disagreement. "Once my parents hear I'm responsible for my own kid dying, they'll never let me live it down."

"Wait, they don't know about that?" Aradia asked, her mouth slightly open in shock. "Isn't that something you'd tell your parents right away?"

"We didn't tell them that we were having a baby, so there was no point in telling them that we killed it." He shrugged. "And now we're not going to tell them it's dead, so let's not stop over there. In fact, let's not go anywhere near there."

Equius cleared his throat so he could speak and bring the attention to him. "If it's any consolation to you, my father told me that your father told him that your brother has a dead child of his own."

"Oh, right, that." Dragging out one of her letters with a sigh, Aradia brought her mouth to its normal position and added: "Yeah, so my sister and your brother were apparently a thing. A thing that ended with heartbreak and my sister losing her mind and aborting their kid to spite Rufioh for leaving her for someone else."

"Someone else being my older brother. Which is why my father was informed by your father, because he wasn't sure if my father would be accepting of having his son in a relationship with someone who was not only non-white, but also someone with a dead child." The way he spoke, Equius sounded pained to even mention the skin color, but everyone present knew that it was a thing with that family to have prejudices against everyone who wasn't white. The fact that it was a gay relationship being dealt with meant even less than skin color. "He didn't mind, though, and so they're still together even now."

"Obviously that asshole didn't care that much," Tavros muttered, back on the topic of his brother's kid, "because I haven't heard that anything came out of it."

Aradia thought for a second before replying. "My sister ran off to who-knows-where after it happened, so she's probably far from his mind. Not like that's an excuse for him not punishing her for doing that, but it's a start." She paused, before clapping her hands together to change the topic. "Well visiting those homes is off-limits. Who thinks going out for a nice meal is a good idea? Because I think it would be a fantastic idea."

"Oh yes, that's a wonderful idea. Let's go somewhere where someone will recognize us and then we'll be stuck talking to them for hours about what life far away from here is like." There was very obvious sarcasm dripping from every word Vriska said, and although it was upsetting to Aradia that her idea had been shot down, it was also nice to hear the broken woman acting so much like her younger self. "I'm sure no one else had the drive to leave this place."

"You're way wrong there, miss Serket!" Nepeta got out of her chair and walked around the table to stand behind Vriska and play with her hair. "We're the only ones who haven't left yet. Everyone else decided away was best not long after you two did."

That earned a laugh from the blonde, who tilted her head up slightly to try and look at who was behind her. "Yeah right. I'm sure that dumb Eridan stayed here. He had zero inspiration to do anything except bang girls."

"And that's why he's gone. Last we heard, he met someone online and went to wherever she was. No idea what happened after that." Sollux gave two thumbs up in approval at his words. "I never liked him. He was a total dick to me and I didn't even go to school with you guys."

"He pulled a Terezi and ditched town for the call of internet relationships."

"Funny story about _that_, Aradia," Tavros said, "because we happen to know where Terezi lives. Man, you all should have seen Vriska's face when she saw her best friend living just across town from where we live."

Everyone laughed, before Aradia asked if it really was true. "Fuck yeah it is. She's going blind which sucks, but she's still the same great woman she was back in our old campaigning days." Vriska smiled, thinking about Terezi and the moment when she had learned that they were living so close to each other. "I wish she had come with us, but her and her man Karkat had things to do. Grown up things."

There was more laughter, interrupted with Tavros sneezing several times. "Uh, Nepeta, could you maybe step away? You smell really strongly of cat..." His voice had sounded somewhat scratchy as he had spoken before, but now it was very obviously altered as he sneezed again. "I can't believe I forgot to take something for this before I saw you today."

"Right, cat allergy. I'll back off." Nepeta dropped the strands of Vriska's hair she was playing with and went back to her chair. "Sorry about that. When you don't ever act like you're allergic to cats, it's hard for me to remember that you are."

"Not your fault. I don't remember I am most days until I forget to take something for it and encounter someone with a cat." He rubbed at his eyes, which were reddened by the presence of cat fur in the air thanks to Nepeta. "I don't think I want to go anywhere today, now that I'm going to be miserable like this. Let's just spend today here again, and maybe tomorrow we can go out on the town for lunch."

Since no one wanted anyone of the group to be miserable while spending time together, they all agreed that staying home was the best course of action, and so another day of continuing on with their campaign occurred. It worked out for the best, because late in the day the winds started howling and the snow started to fall, and they were greeted with several inches of powder that they would have had to journey through if they had gone out.

* * *

Christmas was a few days away, and as was group tradition, the four who spent their time at the house were going to celebrate together. "Are you two going to be leaving before Christmas?" Sollux asked as he and Equius pulled out the boxes of decorations. "I figured that was the plan, but if it's not, just say so."

"Yeah, I think we're going to stay here for the holidays. We'll leave before New Year's, but we'll definitely stay for Christmas." Tavros, trying to help with the set-up but getting outclassed by the much stronger men he was working with, said while looking in Vriska's direction. "But don't think that means you need to accommodate any sort of other holiday stuff into your celebrations."

"Don't we, though? Aradia always said that Vriska didn't celebrate Christmas." Equius, setting a box down, also looked at the blonde who was seated on the couch with her legs propped up. "We simply cannot ignore her beliefs if she has them."

"I'm fine with Christmas," Vriska said, waving a hand above her head. "Gave up on my religion way back before I moved from home, so Christmas is perfectly fine."

"We've got a menorah around here somewhere if you want it out. So maybe your holiday was forever ago, but it's the thought that counts, right?" Aradia, who was digging through one of the already brought boxes with Nepeta, looked to her friend who sent dagger eyes back. "Maybe not. I thought you loved your holiday. Eight days of gifts, remember?"

Vriska rolled her eyes, setting her hand back in her lap. "Yeah, eight days of gifts is great and all, but that was my mom's thing and I didn't care for it. I didn't even like the story."

"The story? You never said there was a story!" Whatever bauble or decoration Aradia had pulled out was placed back where it belonged as she completely focused on Vriska. "Can you tell us it? We could use some holiday education."

"No. Everyone's probably heard it before and it's dumb. Then again, it's for a religion I don't agree with." She flipped her bangs out of her eyes and looked around the room, where everyone, not just Aradia, had their eyes on her. "Oh come on. Don't make me do it. Just keep doing the Christmas thing. That's perfectly fine with me."

"If she insists it's fine, we shouldn't push the issue any further than we have," Equius said, resuming the movement of his box. "Last thing we want to do is trigger another mental breakdown within her fragile mind."

Everyone agreed with him that a crying Vriska was not something they wanted to deal with, and so the setup continued, with everyone helping in some way, aside from Vriska herself, who just sat and watched the entire thing. She wanted no part of putting the tree together, nor did she have any interest in hanging ornaments up on it when it was all set up. "Come on, aren't you going to do something?" Aradia asked, slightly concerned that her friend was mentally separating herself from everyone else. "Don't you want to hang anything up?"

It took a minute, but Vriska's response was nearly silent. "I want to hang something up for summer." She was asked to repeat herself, which she did much louder and with a different choice of words. "I want to hang something up for my dead daughter."

"What did you say the first time?"

"Summer. Her name was Summer." There were tears in Vriska's eyes as she said it loud enough for everyone to hear, and the only response anyone gave was a quiet gasp from Tavros—as he was quite shocked that Vriska was touching that topic on her own. "And I want to hang something for her."

Nepeta started to say something about a lack of child-sized stockings, but she was silenced by a hand motion by Aradia, who sat next to Vriska and hugged her. "We'll definitely hang something for her," she said, squeezing her friend tightly. "We've got a bunch of blue ornaments, and we can write her name on one and hang that up to remember her. Sound good?"

"It's what she'd get if she was here, so yes. Sounds lovely." Vriska sniffled, tears beginning to run down her cheeks. "We'll write her whole name on it, and we'll look at it and think of my little girl who was gone too soon. Summer Storm. Beautiful name for a beautifully tragic girl." As she spoke, her words got quieter and quieter until she was back to her nearly silent voice. "It's perfect."

On the other side of the room where the guys were standing, Equius and Sollux both looked at Tavros, who was shaking his head in shock. "You named your kid _that_?" Sollux asked, hints of disbelief in his voice. "What kind of name would that be for a living child?"

"It was Vriska's choice...she insisted on naming her after the circumstances of her birth and death, and since it happened in a summer storm..." He nearly collapsed from the shock, but the two guys kept him upright and helped him to a seat. "Thanks."

"You're welcome, but you didn't argue the name? Really?"

He shook his head. "There was no point. She got to pick it and I had to accept it, especially with what had happened and all. If she had been born regularly I'm sure her name would have been something different."

"We shouldn't criticize this, Sollux. That name was picked in a stressful time in their lives and holds meaning to them." Equius, ever the voice of reason, placed a firm hand on Tavros' trembling shoulder. "We should just be supportive and accepting of that choice they made."

"I for one think that it's a pretty name and it fits her, even if I never met her!" Aradia loudly announced, trying to keep the negative talk away from Vriska's ears. "And we are going to honor her like she's here watching over all of us. Which I'm sure she is. Why, I bet she's sitting in here right now, listening to us praise her and she's got to be so happy that she had such great parents in the moments she was alive!"

Although her words were supposed to be inspirational, they just caused Vriska to burst into loud crying, and once again everyone present was left to deal with fragile emotions of a broken woman who had been through so much and was trying to be so strong. Once the tears were dried and the extra ornaments were located, Vriska's wish was granted and they, as a group, decorated a single blue piece with the dead child's name, and hung it as close to the angel at the top of the tree as they possibly could while making it readable to everyone.

On Christmas Eve, that memorial got to bear witness to the parents of the dead little girl doing unspeakable things underneath the Christmas tree. As did the people who lived in the house and their almost always present visitors, as Christmas morning was one of those days that everyone got up early to open presents and be in each other's company; they were definitely not expecting to hear moans and screams and the rustling of tree branches as they entered the main room.

No one mentioned that they had seen it, but by the uncomfortable looks that Tavros and Vriska got for the rest of their visit, they could have easily guessed that they had been walked in on by everyone. The only person who got close to revealing that they knew what had gone on was Aradia, and that was by her asking if they were still comfortable sleeping on the pull-out couch bed, knowing that they might have been, but they were definitely more comfortable having sex on her floor under the tree than they were on the squeaky and springy couch.

"So are we ready to open some presents?" Sollux asked, trying not to laugh at how Aradia had asked what she had. "Or did everyone forget to bring something, just like last year."

"Don't lose your head over gifts, Sollux! I made sure that I had something for everyone!" Nepeta fled from the room for a second, and came back with five bags in her arms. "I even ran out when I learned the guests would be here for the holidays and bought them something too!" As she doled out the presents, everyone else was left looking between themselves, wondering who would share a gift next.

"Mine are all on the counter in the kitchen, so I can say I bought things for this year." Opening the gift Nepeta had just given him, Sollux smiled at how he was able to call everyone else out and not be a hypocrite. "Hey, wait, Nepeta, what is this?" He had revealed what was in the bag, and it looked to be nothing more than a silky garment. "Did you seriously buy me this?"

She nodded. "It's got bees on it."

"It's underwear."

"Bees, though. You said you liked it because there were bees and—" She was cut off by everyone beginning to laugh, all of them having opened their gifts and watching the banter intently. "Oh come on! He said he liked it and I knew Aradia wouldn't buy it, because why would she buy him silky undies?"

"It's sort of, well, my job to buy him silky undies," Aradia said in response, stifling a laugh, "and I sort of bought him a pair exactly like that. And he's wearing them right now."

A fierce blush appeared on Nepeta's cheeks as she tried to come up with words to react. "Two pairs is better than no pair at all, so thank you very much for the thoughtful gift." Sollux tossed the now-empty bag aside and set his new underwear on the table next to him. "What did she get all of you?"

"Not silky undies," Vriska sarcastically replied, before giving a more straight answer: "Me and Tavros got picture frames filled with pictures of you guys."

"And I got a new pair of sunglasses, since she accidentally broke the last pair I had." Equius fidgeted a bit where he sat. "She is a very good friend for coming through on replacing those."

Everyone turned their attention to Aradia, who was the only one whose gift hadn't been shared. "Oh, she just got me a girly thing. No big deal." It wasn't until she was implored to answer once more by Sollux that she did. "Okay, fine, she bought me some special undies of my own. They have sheep on them."

"Fucking hell, Nepeta. That's what I bought her." He pounded his fist on the table, but there was no denying that Sollux was anything but mad. In fact, he was more amused than anything. "It's a good thing that I got her other things too."

More laughter ensued, and everyone present was very, very thankful that such a great thing happened on the holiday. Otherwise, the only memorable part of the day would be what had occurred in the morning hours, and no one wanted to remember that as their Christmas experience.

* * *

Three days later, the residents of the house were woken up by a loud crashing noise, one that sounded much like an accident happening right outside of the home. As Aradia rushed to get herself decent enough to leave the bedroom and investigate, Sollux, under his breath, mentioned something about their guests and that it had to have something to do with them. He was correct, as they had yet again decided to have fun underneath the Christmas tree and had managed to knock it over in the process, resulting in the loud noise.

"Why did you two decide it was a good idea to fuck under the tree?" he asked the guilty parties, both of whom were wearing minimal clothing as they were interrogated. "Better yet, why did you two decide it was a good idea to do it more than once?"

"We only knocked it over this time..." Tavros said, looking very sheepish as he scratched his head and looked down at his feet. "Nothing bad happened before."

Aradia, who was picking up shattered ornaments and trying not to cry, shared with the two the information she had almost let slip days before. "We walked in on you when you were doing this on Christmas morning. Why you thought sex that early in the morning was a good idea, who knows. But we saw it."

"I'm so, so sorry. If we had known you knew we were doing this, we wouldn't have done it." Vriska, her arms over her chest to cover it, looked between the angry Sollux and the upset Aradia, trying to decide who to emotionally appeal to more. "But, you know how it gets sometimes. You need a change of pace and get adventurous. Don't you know how that feels, friends?"

"No, we don't know. Most adventurous we ever got was the backseat of my car senior year." Sollux snapped, before he began helping Aradia with the cleanup. "And that didn't destroy property that didn't belong to us."

"We didn't think this would happen..."

With tears falling down her cheeks and broken glass in her hands, Aradia looked at her friends and spoke. "It's not so much that it happened, Tavros, as it is that you guys didn't care to keep your parts to yourselves while you were in our house. And you decided to make love under the tree, where there was a memorial to your dead child! Doesn't that bother you?"

"It didn't bother me before this, but I can see why it should." He took a deep breath before walking to the couch with wobbly steps and sitting on the pulled-out bed. "She's probably judging us so hard for this. We failed her."

"Poor little Summer, she had to watch us do that under what should have been her first tree." Vriska too sat on the bed, grabbing her shirt on the way over and getting it on so she could freely move her arms once more. "Fuck, why can't we actually not be giant mistakes for once in our lives, huh? Why do we always have to fuck up like this?"

"If you two could manage to control your sex drives, we wouldn't be in this situation, and everyone could be peacefully sleeping still." At that point, Sollux was beginning to get the tree back in its upright position, whatever decorations still on it intact. "But no, you had to go and do this. I knew I shouldn't have paid for this trip out here for you. It was bad from the moment it started, and I can't wait for it to be over."

"Sollux!" Although she was crying, Aradia managed to raise her voice at the man she loved so dearly, scaring him into looking at her with wide eyes. "They just wanted to have fun, and while it was completely wrong of them, we shouldn't make them feel worse. They've had a pretty shitty year from what I've gathered. Don't make it worse."

He sighed. "Yes, Aradia. I won't." That was when he turned his words back to the two on the couch. "You're lucky the plan was for you to leave tomorrow anyway, or else your asses would be on the curb right now."

"We know, we know," Tavros mumbled, still looking incredibly small and sheepish, as he grabbed for his metal leg braces. "And we're sorry. We not only failed our friends, but our dead child too."

Vriska's knees were both wrapped and she was pulling her pants on as her boyfriend spoke, but when she was done she added something to the conversation. "We won't ever let it happen again, that is, if you'll let us come back some time again."

"We definitely will!" Aradia's voice drowned out whatever negative thing Sollux was trying to say. "Even though you broke my tree, you're still some of my best friends ever, and I'm not going to keep you away if you want to come back. In fact, I'd be happy if we made this a yearly thing!" Her tears were long gone and a smile had replaced her sadness as she continued. "Every year for the holidays you guys could come out here, and maybe one day you'll want to do something that isn't just sit around here and play games."

"You mean go and visit our families." The tone Tavros spoke with was still quiet, but it wasn't as solemn as his earlier voice had been. This one was filled with anger and disgust. "That won't happen for a long while. I don't plan on talking to my brother or parents until I have something they'd be proud of to tell them, and Vriska...we all know how she feels about her mom."

"Sorry that I implied anything." With the tree back in its upright position and all the broken ornaments now cleaned up, Aradia was back to her normal and chipper self, and she inspected what her and Sollux had just fixed. "Hey, would you look at that," she said, pointing at a certain blue ball that seemed to be perfectly fine. "The memorial survived the fall."

When Equius and Nepeta came over a few hours later, they were treated to the story of that eventful morning as well as a bawling Vriska, something about Aradia's last statement driving her to tears it took the good part of the day to stop.

* * *

It was a relatively nice day in early February, and Aradia was sitting out on a bench outside the local school where she volunteered some of her time to play with the children during their breaks. Her phone, which was in her pocket in case she was needed anywhere that wasn't there, began to vibrate and give off little jingles that signaled that someone was calling her. She checked to see who it was, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Vriska, who she hadn't spoken to since her and Tavros had left the day after the Christmas tree incident. But since she was with the students, she couldn't take the call, and she ignored it.

Once she was safely home some time later, she decided it was for the best that she called her friend back and found out what was going on. "Hello?" the voice on the other side of the line answered. "Is this you, Aradia?"

"Sure is. You called me at a bad time earlier, but I can talk now. What's up?"

She hadn't been expecting to hear crying, but when she remembered that it was Vriska, the woman who was so broken just mentioning falling upset her, that she was talking to, things made a bit more sense. "I've made a big mistake," Vriska said between sniffles. "A very big mistake and I know it happened at your house."

"Aw, what do you mean? You didn't leave anything here, so it's not that. Did something happen that made Tavros mad? Did he leave you?"

"No, no, none of that. He might leave, though. I don't know." There was a definite sense of fear in the voice she was listening to, and all Aradia wanted to do was hug her friend and tell her everything was going to be okay. When she asked again what Vriska meant by what she said, the answer she got was not one she was expecting at all. "I'm pregnant again, Aradia, and I don't know what to do."

"Oh...wow." It was all she could manage. She didn't know the full story about Summer and what had happened with her, but with the way Vriska was acting, she knew that it had to have had some effect on this. "You've got this. Just do what you did last time, except keep this one from tumbling down the stairs. That's all I can say."

Vriska forced a laugh. "I wasn't planning on falling down those ever again. But I'm not telling Tavros, not until I've got a good way to. He was hit hard by losing the last one, and I don't want to upset him again." She sighed, giving a few little sniffles before she continued to speak. "I just wanted to tell you first, since, well, this little thing did kind of happen on your floor..."

The laughter that ensued on both sides was genuine, and Aradia was actually happy to be the first to know about her friend's big announcement. After she swore not to tell anyone who wasn't Sollux, Equius, or Nepeta about it, they ended the call, and she was left sitting on her bed, just thinking about how difficult it must have been to be Vriska right then, to be faced with something she had just faced not long ago, and do what she had done.

It also made her mentally swear off having unprotected fun with Sollux until they could both be assured that they wouldn't end up the same way Tavros and Vriska had.

* * *

A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on January 23rd, 2014.

Chronologically this goes in between Let's Play Hide-and-Seek and Let's Play Mind Games, but it was written closer to where I've decided to put it in the chronology. And why is this important? Because some of these characters are coming back in next week's installment, and what better way to be introduced to them than through their little intermission fic?


	13. Act III Part I: Let's Not

**Act III Part I**

_Let's Not Get Married_

One simple look at the little card that had been inside the envelope slid underneath his apartment door one April afternoon made Dave groan harder than he had in a long time. If he was getting an invitation for a wedding that was to be held in September this early, either the people holding the event were extremely confident that their ceremony would be on that day, or the future bride was pregnant. Knowing the people in question, both answers were completely possible, especially since it _had_ been six months since the birth of their last child.

Reasoning for the invitation being sent when it was aside, Dave had one big problem with this ceremony: there was no way he'd be able to help them out with the costs of it. He knew for a fact that Tavros and Vriska barely had the money to take care of themselves and their two young children, so how were they supposed to pay for the wedding of their dreams? He groaned again, setting the invitation on the counter and looking at what hung at his eye level-the reason for why he couldn't help.

When he had turned twenty-one, his older brother Dirk, known by his pseudonym of D Street, had convinced him to sign a contract that guaranteed him a sizeable portion of the profits from his puppet and robot making business, but with several conditions. Most of them were bearable, like helping out when he could or starring in at least one ad a year, but there was one particular condition that always tripped Dave up whatever he did.

Under no circumstances was he allowed to share any of his money with his friends. The rule worked both ways, limiting who Dirk could use his money on as well, but Dave was affected by it more. His friends were all hardworking and poor, and he couldn't give them the cash they needed to survive. So he started throwing parties for them, started finding ways to spend money on them that would help better their lives in whatever way he could, and started trying to be a supportive friend in every way he could except by handing necessary cash over.

For the most part, the method worked, and he could be counted on to throw birthday bashes and dinner parties alike. Sure, his friends hated him for the surprise parties that he'd spring on them, but he knew that they appreciated the gesture more than they let on. It wouldn't have been possible for them to have any of the fun times they had been part of it wasn't for him renting out entire buildings for them. But even his renting sometimes had limits that his brother insisted on, such as the time he had thrown a birthday party for himself and had it crashed by little kids who also wanted to play laser tag.

There were many times that he intended on doing something but his brother would forbid it, because Dirk was smart enough to see through whatever Dave was trying to do to directly help his friends. The older brother did, after all, see all the bills that were taken care of by his money that he was giving to his brother, and since Dave was expected to pay for his home and necessities with money he made himself, all the money he was getting from his contract was for excess things.

Things that were very hard to keep from being helpful.

He flicked the paper a few times before picking the invitation back up and thinking about the situation some more. How were they going to handle it? Were they going to expect family members, who he knew had been shunned for years, to pay for things? Were those family members even going to be invited? What about their out-of-state friends, would they be coming too? Who would be paying for people coming into town simply for the wedding? It was a money nightmare even for Dave, and he had all the excess money he could ever wish for. What was this situation even like for his friends?

It probably wasn't his place to ask, he realized the more he thought about it. After all, they were used to him being the aloof friend, the one who caused more trouble than good, the one who was only marginally helpful, and even then only when it benefited him. He could list all the times that he'd caused harm to one or both of them when just trying to be a friend, and none of those instances were good things to have on his record. That hypothetical list would, of course, include the time his car broke down when trying to leave work and, in a roundabout way, ended up making Tavros miss the birth of his first child. It would also include the time that he thought it would be fun to play truth or dare with a pregnant Vriska and daring her to drink one of the beers he had brought to the party, which ended up causing her to sleep in his bed with him, as was the punishment set for not going through with a dare, something he himself had set up.

That led him to question why he was even invited to the wedding, when he had done so many bad things to the two. Did they expect him to not mess anything else up in the five months between getting the invite and the actual ceremony? The chances of that happening were lower than the chances of his brother deciding to rip up their dumb contract, and there was very little chance of being freed from that binding document.

Yet, somehow, he managed to keep his act together for the most part. He still threw parties, still joked with them like always, but he made sure that he didn't do anything too out of line that would revoke his invitation. There were some close calls, but he kept himself out of trouble and kept his right to go to the wedding in good standing.

On the other side of things, his relationship with his brother was becoming more and more strained by the day, if only because of money issues that Dirk had caused in the first place. "I don't understand why you won't let me give them some cash when they need it," the older Strider muttered, passing cans of corn to Dave so he could bag them. "It wouldn't be much. Just enough to get them through until the next paychecks come."

"You set the rules. No money to others in the form of cash." With every can that he was handed, Dave thought about going back on his words, going against the contract, and telling his brother to do what he wanted because it was his own money. But then he remembered all the times he'd been the one asking to help someone and been turned down, and felt the need to keep telling his brother no. "Not even if it's your best friend."

The customer they were running the checkout for paid and left, taking the bags of corn and other foods with them, and since the line was then clear, Dirk turned to his younger brother and scowled. "Is this payback for all the times I've told you that you can't help your best friends?"

"Yes and no."

"What do you mean, yes and no? It has to be one or the other."

Dave looked around to make sure no one was close enough to hear him, before stepping closer to his brother and the cash register. "It's yes because my friends have needed cash to get by and you've told me I couldn't share even though they really needed it and I didn't, and it's no because I'm just following the rules. Which, really, are dumb and I shouldn't follow them. But it is yes and no and you can fucking deal with it."

His brother's face paled a bit, as he was obviously flustered, and he pushed Dave away with gloved hands. "Get away from me. I don't need to put up with your shit right now. We're at work."

"You fucking started this, Dirk." Stepping back to his station, Dave took a deep breath and tried to push the thoughts of his brother almost literally begging him to let him break the rules from his mind. He had bigger things to worry with, like getting through the rest of his shift with Dirk being angry at him, and with the people that he so badly wanted to give money to arriving at any moment, because it just so happened that they worked with them.

Like he had known it was their time to come on the clock, two nearly identical blonde women approached their checkout dressed in the aprons and nametags indicative of the store, both waving their hellos. "Looks like we'll be working together again today," the older woman said, before awkwardly giving Dirk a sidehug over the counter. "I always love a shift where I work with my best friend in the whole world."

Dave rolled his eyes, forgetting for a second that he wasn't wearing his trademark sunglasses, and the younger blonde gave him a stern look. "You know, you shouldn't do that at work. You may get caught by a customer or a manager and they'll fire you. Not like you need the money, Strider."

"Not like I need you giving me this right now, Lalonde." He stuck his tongue out at the woman and hoped she'd disappear and leave him to suffer through the rest of the day, but she stayed put. "Don't you have a register to get to and groceries to bag? Or are you too good for that?"

"I figured I could accompany my mom over here, as she tries to talk some sense into your brother. We really need that money." As she spoke, words from the conversation between Dirk and the older woman could be heard, all of which were negative and put a bad feeling in the pit of Dave's stomach. He knew there were rules, but how could someone still argue for the rules when the words "about to be kicked out" were involved?

"Rose, you're not really about to be evicted, are you?" he asked after listening to the other two argue for a bit. "That would be fucking stupid if you were."

She shrugged. "I'm not supposed to be involved in the finances, because, in my mom's mind, I'm still too young to help her out with that. But, in all honesty, yes. Yes we are. And Dirk, who swears he's my mom's best friend, won't help us out just this month."

"There's a contract that he's not allowed to break. He hasn't ever let me help Tavros and Vriska when they've needed money, so he's not going to help you guys out. Sorry about that." He hated having to say those words, because Rose and her mother Roxy were pretty much family to him and that _should_ have been enough for the contract. But the fine print said family only, not almost-family, and it couldn't be ignored.

It wasn't much later that Roxy walked away in tears and Rose had to follow her to make sure she didn't blow off her commitment to work, because working meant money and every cent counted. "I can't believe I just had to do that," Dirk said, pushing his dark, triangle glasses up on his face. "I never wanted to see her cry like that."

Dave had to step away from his station for several minutes to keep himself from attacking his brother after he said that, because he knew that, deep down, Dirk didn't care that he had just made someone cry. He just cared that he got to keep his money the way it was.

* * *

Getting home after what was arguably the worst shift of his life in years, Dave noticed a surprising amount of cars with out-of-state license plates in the parking lot in front of the building. He brushed the sight of them off as just a coincidence, but as he ascended the stairs it dawned on him that maybe it was a bit important that all of those cars were present. Not even caring that he was still in his apron from work, he dashed up the unnecessary second flight of stairs and opened the door to the apartment that belonged to two of his friends. The couch in the living room was covered with strangers, as was the floor and half of the chairs at the table. Standing against the wall talking was Tavros, holding in his arms the squirming and babbling creature known as Dante, while sitting on a chair right next to him was Vriska, with the little girl named Snow on her lap. They didn't notice his arrival, not even when he stumbled in and slammed the door behind him, finding a place to rest on the arm of the couch next to some red-haired guy he'd never seen before.

"I hope you enjoy your time here, all of you," he heard Tavros finishing, and it appeared to him that he had just been giving some sort of arrival speech to all the strangers. "It's going to be an interesting experience over these next several days."

"Yeah, uh, question?" the red-haired guy asked, shooting his hand up into the air and nearly knocking Dave from where he sat. "Who's this guy who decided to be right next to me? He's kind of hot and I'm wondering if he's free meat."

Tavros looked at Dave, unable to make eye contact due to the shades that had rightfully found their place on Dave's face. "Him? He's about as free of meat as you'd like him to be. Only problem is that you're a guy."

"Fuck yeah I'm a guy." The man pounded on his chest, making a peace sign with his hand. "And I can dig other guys. That's cool."

"Sorry, but who are you?" Dave asked, turning to look at the stranger. "I've never seen you before in my life, and I'd appreciate it if you weren't indirectly hitting on me. Indirect hitting on others is my specialty, thank you very much."

The guy blinked a few times, processing what had been said to him, before jumping to his feet and sticking his hand in Dave's face for him to shake. "The name's Rufioh. I'm Tavros's older brother. Invited out here for the wedding, y'know? Never thought I'd get to see my little bro settle down, and yet here I am, going to see exactly that." Although the words coming out of Rufioh's mouth were said in an excited tone, there was a sense of dragging at the end of every statement, as if he was mentally connecting each phrase instead of stopping after each one. "What's your name, dude? And why are you here?"

"I'm Dave. I live downstairs. Been friends with your brother and his woman for as long as they've lived here. It's kind of my place to just walk in and make myself at home." He smirked, causing Rufioh to give a small smile in return. "I can tell you like me. What's up with that? Most new people can't stand me. Say I'm too aloof and mysterious for their tastes."

"That's cool, doll."

"And now you're creeping me out. Even if I was into dudes, which I'm not, I'd keep my distance from you." Dave shuddered, before pushing Rufioh's hand, which he had never actually shaken, away from him. "I can see why Tavros doesn't like you."

Both of the darker-skinned men gasped, Tavros almost dropping the child in his arms. "What?"  
"I may have been shit-faced drunk that night, but don't think I don't remember what you said when we played truth or dare." He looked straight at Tavros, who was re-situating the child that he nearly dropped. "You called him an asshole a bunch and you said you were always compared to him, and I do believe there was a 'fuck that guy' thrown in."

"I was also drunk that night, so whatever I said may have been influenced by my drinking. That being said, uh, I didn't mean it." The hesitant tone to Tavros's voice was a bit worrisome to Dave, because it meant that maybe he had meant what was said, but wasn't expecting it to be brought up. "I like my brother a lot, and I'm glad he came out here for this. Don't make him think otherwise."

"Already thinking otherwise, bro. It's cool if you hate me. Not like you're the first to trick me into thinking you like me when you don't." Rufioh sat back down on the couch, causing Dave to get up from next to him and step away. "I just figured, hey, little brother wants me back in his life, I should go back in his life. Especially since he's doing something I'll get compared to."

"You guys better not be fucking fighting." Vriska looked up from Snow, who she had been playing with, and glared directly at Dave. "This is no time for your bullshit, Strider. This is family time, and you're not family."

He put on his stoic cool guy face and stared back at her. "Last time I checked, Terezi's not your family either. Neither's the ginger chick over there." He pointed towards a long-haired woman who was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs. "Never seen her in your photo albums. She doesn't even look like you."

"Excuse you? You take back what you just said about two of my best friends who could easily pass as family. You weren't even invited to this. This is a 'everyone who used to know each other' get-together, not something you need to be at." With that, Vriska turned her attention to the girl in her lap, who was stringing together what few words she knew.

"By the way," the woman who Dave had called out moments before said, clearing her throat before continuing, "you have seen pictures of me before. I saw your comments on them. You thought I was a hot piece of ass, if I remember correctly."

Much unlike his normal behavior, Dave found himself getting red in the face. "Fuck, you're that married chick that had her man threaten me with death if I hit on you. I knew I should remember that face."

"My name is Aradia. And if Sollux was here, he would definitely kill you."

"Right. I'm sure he would. He'd be dumb if he actually killed me." In reality, Dave was a bit worried that this guy who he'd never met before in his life would actually kill him, based on all the stories he'd heard about him from the people who knew him. "I've got an important role in this upcoming wedding, don't you know? They're making me be a suit guy."

"I can easily revoke that privilege, Dave. Don't make me have to hurt you by doing that." Tavros, sliding down the wall to a sitting position next to his bride-to-be, gave a small laugh. "Aw, who am I kidding. I'd never do that to such a great friend."

At that moment, having barged in and started drama somewhere he shouldn't have been, Dave felt like anything but a great friend.

* * *

Three nights after the meeting in the apartment that he regretted going to was the rehearsal dinner followed by a party, and Dave had completely intended to go to both, especially since he had a role in the wedding that followed. The only problem, which he had brought up with the management at work on several occasions, was that he was scheduled to work that night. As was Rose, who was also invited to the wedding and wanted to be at the rehearsal, and she was already mad at Dave for his behavior towards her on their last encounter.

She was normally very cordial towards him, having been his friend for years and years prior, but when he got her mad she was always trying to find a way to get under his skin, to make him as angry as she was. Most of the time, she was unable to do it, but on that particular night, anything was possible—including making him completely snap. Their problem was the same, wanting to both leave early to go to the same event, and Rose planned completely on manipulating Dave into letting things go her way.

The problem was, Dave was unmoving on his stance that, since the people getting married the next day were his friends for longer, he deserved to get to go to the events more than she did. "You're not ruining this for me," he told her, before she even got a chance to ask him if she could possibly leave first. "They need me there more than they need you."

"Except I was personally invited. You were given an invitation and never actually talked to about it. They came to me and asked. I have to be there before you are." She batted her eyelashes and tried to make herself look attractive to him, but he rolled his eyes in response.

"Don't care. You complain about needing money, so you just stay here and get those extra hours and I'll go get wasted and have fun with my friends." Thinking that was the end of the conversation, Dave tried to return to his work, but Rose grabbed his arm and pulled him close to her once more. "Hey! Don't bruise me, okay? I've got to look good for all the wedding pictures I'll be in tomorrow."

"First of all, you'll be in a tuxedo and your arms will be covered. Secondly, I want to get wasted and have fun with my friends just as much as you do. Thirdly, you're scheduled to be here until close. I am not. Yet you've convinced the manager to let you go early. To that, Strider, I say no. I'm not letting you get out of your work." She squeezed his arm tightly. "Now say you're going to do as you're scheduled, or I will have to discuss your work habits with the managers at their next meeting. And," she added, seeing words of rebuttal forming on his lips, "I know full well that you sneak food when no one's looking."

"Since when does my brother sneak food?" Dirk interrupted, appearing behind Dave and resting his elbows on his brother's shoulders. "I wasn't aware that he did that. Thanks for the tip, Rose."

"My pleasure, Dirk." She smiled at him, a smile that reeked of sarcasm. "Now will you convince your brother that he has to stay until close tonight?"

The older Strider opened his mouth to assist Rose, but closed it fairly quickly and tilted his head. "Since when does he close with your mom?"

"Tonight I have plans that I made sure to get across to the managers very well. My mother needs the money, so she will be closing, but I am going to a party and Dave will be closing in my place."

"Sounds like a plan if I've ever heard one. Sorry, little bro, but that's how it's got to be if the schedule says it is." Dirk got off of his brother's shoulders and brushed them off, as if his elbows had left something there. "I can't let you skip out on making bill money."

"I wouldn't be skipping out on anything except a rehearsal that I probably should be at!" He was almost seething, but didn't show it due to his insistence on keeping a calm appearance. "Rose doesn't even need to go, and it's her and her mom that need the money, not me."

Dirk raised an eyebrow at Rose. "He's got a point there, you know."

"A bad point. My mother already has an idea of how to get money from you, she just won't tell me what it is. She says it's 'no business for young girls,' even though I'm fairly certain I'm far from a young girl." She stifled a laugh, attempting to seem like she was serious. "But regardless of the bills that need to be paid, I leave early tonight. That's just how it is when they call in the best workers in the shop."  
"If you go, so does your mom." Dave spoke without thinking about consequences, because he was more worried with getting his way than anything else. "I'm not working with her when I can't even shoot a freestyle rap her way without getting weird looks. Either you stay or she goes."

"Dave, I don't think you have the rig—"

"Shut it, Dirk." He motioned with a couple fingers for his brother to close his mouth. "I'm fighting for what I rightfully deserve. They stay together or leave together. We aren't splitting teams up."

It was then that Roxy happened to walk over, in the middle of a conversation with the manager, and both of them heard Dave's outburst. "What's going on?" she quietly asked Rose, who sighed. "Did I miss something big?"

"Yes, Striders, did she miss something big?" The manager tapped his foot on the floor, an echoing sound filling the air. "Do you have a problem with how I scheduled you all?"  
Before he even realized who he was talking to, Dave said, "Yes, yes I do have a problem. You're letting a broke girl ditch her work for something she shouldn't even be at, while the guy who's _actually important_ has to get stuck here working with that girl's drunk of a mother!" He was pointing fingers, slamming his teeth together, and driving everyone away from where he stood, Rose and Roxy both almost in tears. "I'm not doing this, not on a night that I actually need to get away!"

The manager was plenty mad enough that he had to listen to one of his employees verbally go at two others, but he was madder when tears actually started to fall. "You're not going anywhere tonight, Dave. Neither is your brother." Dirk opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it. "You don't attack my two best workers and expect to get rewarded. Whatever you had to do tonight that was so important that you had to call them out, it can wait. I expect to see you still here when the doors close, and you'll certainly be hearing about this later." He walked away without another word to Dave, but gave both of the Lalondes pats on their shoulders for comfort as he left.

"I can't believe you did that," Dirk whispered, before turning away. "I had plans tonight too, you know. Had some puppet shows to frequent, some porn to sign. But no, little spoiled brother had to ruin that. You're going to pay for this, Dave. Believe me."

Never in his life had Dave felt like a bigger jerk. He'd reduced his brother's best friend and her daughter, both of whom worked so hard for what they had, to tears. He'd caused his older brother to want to punish him for real, not for enjoyment. And he'd gotten himself stuck doing something when he had other things he could be doing. He took a deep breath, pushed his glasses on his face to hide his eyes, and decided to make the best of the night.

* * *

"Hey, Dave, we need to talk." It was after close, after Dave was finally free from his work commitment and able to go to his social one. But while he was trying to salvage the night, his brother needed him, the brother he had upset so much in his earlier outburst. He chose to ignore his brother's plea and storm out the store's back door, because what he had to do seemed so much more important to him than whatever Dirk would have to say.

Thankfully, the party was still going strong when he got to the building, evidenced by all the cars in the parking lot. After he had changed out of his work clothes and into something more comfortable, he made his way up the flight of stairs and was greeted by someone he had already dealt with enough that day to justify seeing her again. "Hello, Dave," Rose said, crossing her arms over her chest."About time you drag your rude ass here."

"Listen, I know you're pissed about what happened earlier, but—"

"But nothing! You and your asshole brother ran my mother and me off when we're not the ones rolling in money!" He could see the anger in Rose's eyes, but he could also see that she was inebriated, most likely from whatever drinks were being passed out at the party. "Are you ignoring me?"

He shook his head, snapping back to reality from the thoughts about drinking. "No, just trying to come up with a way to fight with a tipsy girl. Let's just ignore all this and argue later, okay?" She blinked a few times, before uncrossing her arms and smiling at him. "That's the Rose I like to deal with." Putting the confrontation in the back of his mind, he opened the apartment door and went inside, Rose following him.

For being labeled as a party, there wasn't much going on aside from deep conversation in both the living room and at the kitchen table. The louder of the two, on the couch, involved Vriska's mom and Tavros arguing about something related to finances, while the quieter one had John and Jade and some of Vriska's old friends all discussing their feelings on the upcoming wedding. It was at that very moment that Dave realized that the wedding was in less than a day, and then he'd be the only one of his core group of pals that would be unmarried. He looked behind him for Rose, half wanting to ask her if she'd be interested in becoming an official member of his "gang," so that he wouldn't feel so awkward, but she was no longer there.

He found her making her way towards the kitchen and paid it no mind, only caring when she returned a few moments later with a fruity drink in one hand and several expertly-stacked beers in the other, the stacked drinks for him. "If we aren't going to fight, at least we can get drunk together," she told him, handing him the tower of drinks. "You know you're more fun when you're wasted."

"Uh, thanks," he replied, setting all but one of the drinks down on the floor for whoever wanted them and opening the one he kept to take a few sips. In the middle of one such sip, he was interrupted by a masculine and firm hand finding a resting place on his shoulder. "Can I help you?" he asked, turning his head to see who was there, his eyes locking with two red, teary ones. "Oh, shit, why are you crying, dude?"

"She ripped into me..." Tavros sniffled, moving a bit closer to Dave. "And she told me I'm not good enough for her daughter, and that I'm never going to be a good dad to my kids and..." He dissolved into loud, body-shaking tears. "And then she says there's no fighting us getting married."

"Isn't that a good thing, though?"

The hand was pulled from his shoulder, so Dave could turn and fully see how Tavros was shaking as he cried. "I guess, b-but she could have done without tearing me d-down first..."

"Yeah, but Vriska's said she's a bitch. It was to be expected." Without realizing he was talking so loudly, Dave continued: "You should have known that she'd go off on you for stealing away her precious little girl, and giving her grandkids she doesn't want. You're crying over nothing, you idiot."

Tavros almost immediately stopped crying, at the price of Vriska's mom, who had overheard the speech Dave had just given, storming off in the direction of the bedrooms of the apartment. "Thanks. Needed to hear that."

"You're welcome, bro." The words were drowned out by a loud scream by a child, silencing everyone in the apartment. Dave looked at Tavros, whose teary cheeks had grown pale. "Wait, that was your kid, wasn't it?"

"That _bitch_! She just woke the baby up!" Making it extremely clear that he wasn't acting in sobriety, he let out a low growl and ran the best he could in the direction of the screaming, metal hitting the floor loudly with every step, leaving Dave standing awkwardly with everyone's eyes on him.

He put his non-drink-filled hand up, giving a small wave to everyone. "Way to go, Strider," Karkat, sitting on the floor, said with a laugh. "Night before the guy's wedding and you ticked him off."

"I didn't do it. His future mother-in-law did it, and he just lost his shit and got mad." Dave stepped closer to where his friend was seated, nearly tripping over several people in the process. "Not like it matters. He'll forget about it in the morning."

"Fuck yeah he will. He's been drinking pretty hard all night." Getting up off the floor and helping Terezi, who had been seated right next to him, to her feet, Karkat pushed Dave back towards the door. "Come on, let's get outside and talk about this where no one else is."

Everyone seated around where they stood heard Karkat's suggestion, and it was Tavros' brother who decided to claim that very moment as a smoke break. With Karkat and Terezi unwillingly in the lead, Dave somewhere in the middle, and a bunch of others mixed in, they made their way out of the apartment, down the stairs, and out onto the front steps of the building. It wasn't until they were all outside, most everyone with a cigarette in their mouth, that Karkat grumbled about their being too many people outside to make the trip have been worth it. "Damn this, damn fucking people who just don't care!" he yelled, before pulling a lighter out of his pocket and asking Terezi to pass him a cigarette from her pack. "This was supposed to be us time, not everyone time!"

"Whatever you wanted to talk about, I'm sure we could do it now. Everyone's hella distracted," Dave pointed out. "I'm the only one here who doesn't have a fag in my mouth now."

"Excuse you?" Dave hadn't even gotten the chance to explain his terminology when he had a drunken, red-haired, dark-skinned man in his face. "I came out here for a smoke, not be judged for—"

"A fag's a cigarette, you dumbass." Tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder, Vriska bounced down the front steps, pulled Rufioh off of Dave, and snatched the burning cigarette from his hand. "And now it's mine." She chuckled, before taking a long drag of her prize. "Fuck, it feels great to be smoking and wasted."

"Should you really be doing that?" Dave asked, shaking his head at Vriska. "I mean, don't you have bigger things to deal with that don't have to do with getting a buzz?"

She shot a dirty look at him, before blowing some smoke in his face. "Kids are back asleep. Mom's fighting with everyone and ignoring me. Nope, think this is the best thing I could be doing right now." Flipping her hair once more, she joined some of her other friends who were mid-conversation a bit away, and seamlessly entered what they were doing.

"If you'd like to stop ticking off the peanut gallery," Karkat grumbled, "we'd be able to discuss the matters at hand."

"What matters?"

"Don't play fucking dumb, you know damn well what matters we have to discuss!" After taking another inhale of his cigarette, Karkat continued. "We need to talk about how the fuck you managed to piss off miss 'I'm more into girls so back off' at work."

Dave sighed. "I'd rather not talk about that, okay? It was ugly."

"We know it was. She called her girlfriend and bitched about you to her for like ten minutes." Terezi blew a smoke ring in Dave's direction. "It was funny, but kinda sad. What did you do to her that made her do that?"

"I called her mom a drunk."

"Dude, _you're_ a drunk." Another smoke ring. "And Rose is too. Actually, we all are. We get a night off and we get smashed. We get together and we get smashed. We do anything remotely interesting and we wake up the next morning with hangovers."

"Terezi, you are making me feel so fucking bad about what I did, it's not funny. Let's drop the subject and talk about fun stuff, okay? Like how much money we wanna bet on drunk-as-fuck Vriska getting even drunker Tavros to fuck her silly and knock her up tonight. I'm placing ten bucks on that it happens." He gave a smug grin at his friends, but the loud and whiny groan that came from the other group told him that, once again, he was speaking loudly enough for everyone to hear.

The second clue that led him to that conclusion was Vriska coming back over to him and slapping him on the back. "Don't you fucking say that, okay? I want to get through tonight without that happening. Especially since my mom will be in the room next door. She's heard me getting fucked once before, she doesn't need to hear it again."

On that note, people started trickling back into the building, and the smoke break was deemed finished. She hit Dave again before following her friends up, leaving him, Karkat, and Terezi as the only ones still outside in the night. "Did Vriska really just say that?" he asked, trying to touch where he had been hit to see if it was swollen. "Did she really just admit to what she just admitted to? Or was I hearing things?"

"It's pretty damn common knowledge that she had a boyfriend she did those things with before she got with Tavros," Terezi replied, tossing the end of her cigarette into the street. "She only used to make out with him in class like every day."

"Sorry, I didn't get the memo. Didn't go to school in some hillbilly town like y'all did." He hoped Terezi would laugh at his comment, but she just shook her head in a bit of disgust. "What? It wasn't an insult or anything."

"Sounded pretty insulting to me, Dave. You've really got to watch your cool guy mouth." The woman put an arm around Karkat, resting her head on his shoulder. "Now let's get back to the party before something cool happens. I want to hear how Vriska tells everyone about what you said about her."

"You don't think she'll really do that, do you?" He sounded worried as he asked his question, but in reality Dave couldn't care less about what Vriska did. As long as he didn't get directly hurt, he couldn't be less concerned. It wasn't like anyone would remember what happened in the morning, after all, and he was proud that he was hanging around a bunch of drunks after all.

When they made it back to the apartment, there was nothing but silence. As the door closed behind them, creaking as it did, Dave started to have second thoughts about not worrying, because things had taken a turn for the creepy. "So, uh, what was that you said about a bet?" someone asked, someone he didn't know the name for. "We'd all like to get involved in that, if you wouldn't mind."

"I told everyone, and Equius is right. Not a single person here doesn't have some opinion on that bet you proposed outside." Vriska gave a smile that was one of her bitchiest. "Problem is, they're all on the opposing side of you. They know me, they know Tavros, and they know we're not that dumb. Still wanna throw down ten bucks?"

Dave meekly shook his head. "No ma'am. Not going to owe the whole room money because I opened my mouth one damn time."

Everyone slowly turned their focus from Dave and his silly bet to their own conversations, and he settled up against the wall just watching everyone interact. There were so many people he didn't really know that his friends were talking to, which caused him to be wary about joining anyone for the fear of making an even bigger fool of himself. He finally settled on the group where Tavros was talking to his parents and brother about something in rapid Spanish, while Vriska and her mom silently watched on. At least in that group, he thought, he wouldn't be able to mess things up. They were all drunk and seemed to be having fun with whatever they were saying.

"So, uh, why didn't you decide to get married sooner? Like, for instance, way before children were even part of the question." Tavros's mom asked, her words slurred and barely able to be understood. "I'm very confused about that."

"I am too, actually." Shifting how she was sitting, Vriska's mom crossed her legs in front of her and gave a stone-cold glare at her daughter. "I demand answers."

Although he shouldn't have inserted himself into the conversation, Dave had an answer and he had it ready before the couple in question did. "It's because Tavros didn't have enough money. They say spend three months' worth of your salary on the ring—and since Tavros barely makes any money in a month, he had to save up."

"I make enough money, thanks," Tavros said in response, hanging his head down to muffle his voice a bit. "I just wanted to get Vriska the ring of her dreams. It took saving up for five years to get it, but it's what she wanted."

"Oh, that's what I want to hear!" Vriska's mom clasped her hands together. "I want to know that this illegal immigrant spent five years of his time making money to treat my daughter right!" She looked at Tavros's parents, who were both glaring at her. "Oh, don't look at me like that. You know you're all not supposed to be here."

"We should very much be here, thanks." Standing up to intimidate her, Tavros's dad cracked his knuckles and made a punching motion towards the blonde woman sitting next to Vriska, "Now take back what you said before I knock you into next week."

Before her mom was able to do anything, Vriska put her hands up and said, "No fighting! We aren't going to take wedding pictures with black eyes and bruises!"

"Then get your low-class mother to say sorry."

"Dad! Don't say something like that, please!" Tavros fell from his seat to before his father's feet, which he grabbed. "Don't make a big deal out of her drunken racism!"

The elder Nitram sighed and sat back down, before letting a string of curses out, all in Spanish. His wife hugged him close to her, telling him reassuring things to calm him down, and his two sons looked between each other for what they should do. After a short conversation that Dave couldn't understand, Tavros turned to him. "Get out of my place, dude."

"What? All I said was you don't make shit."

"And then you caused my family to be called illegal. Yeah, you're done for the night." Tavros motioned to the door. "You're still part of the wedding, but damn. I thought you could keep things straight for one night and you couldn't."

Rather than fighting and causing yet another scene, Dave decided it was best to do what he was told and leave, not saying goodbye to anyone because he knew he'd see them all the next day at the ceremony. As he closed the door behind him, he could hear the screaming of two white ladies over the use of racism and how insulting it was, followed by the whining of children obviously woken up from their sleep.

He felt bad for what had happened, but he knew that it happened for a reason and he couldn't dwell on being trash for too long.

* * *

The wedding ceremony started in the early afternoon, but as one of the key people involved, Dave was supposed to arrive at noon to help set up and get everything as perfect as it could be. He was all dressed up and ready to go, something he had been told not to do, so they could all get dressed together, but he wanted to make sure he looked great. Putting his sunglasses on his face as a final touch, he looked at himself in the mirror before taking a few selfies on his phone and admiring how great he looked. Nothing was going to go wrong, not like the hazy night before that he barely remembered.

Once he was on the road, his phone started ringing and although common sense told him to ignore the call since he was behind the wheel, it was a call from Dirk. And a call from Dirk meant that something was happening that he needed to know about. Once he hit a red light he called back, having missed the original call. "You rang, bro?" he asked, putting the phone on speaker and in his lap. "I'm kind of busy right now, so make it quick."

"I know you've got something going on, but you need to get over here now. Our uncle died, dude." Dirk sounded genuinely upset, and it took a second for the words to register with Dave. "You've got to help me with these plans and junk. He didn't leave his stuff to anyone, so we're in charge of that."

"We have parents, they can deal with it." Dave understood that a death in the family was a big deal, but he was going to his friends' wedding. He couldn't deal with family matters, especially of a family member he didn't really care for, on a day where he had bigger priorities. "I'll swing by your place after everything's done tonight, okay?"

"No can do. You need to get over here now." The sadness mixed with a stern tone in Dirk's voice, creating a combination that Dave only ever heard when things were really bad. "It won't take long, just drive here, then get wherever you're going. Ten minutes, tops."

If his head wasn't still slightly fuzzy from the night before, Dave would have said no right away and hung up. But he wasn't thinking completely straight and figured that he could trust his brother on the time it would take. "Okay, where's this place? I'll be there as soon as I can be." His brother told him the directions, and he got off the phone, driving to a part of town he'd honestly never been in before. Everything was rundown, there seemed to be no people anywhere, and the streets were empty. Things didn't seem right for their uncle to have lived anywhere near a place like this, but Dave trusted his brother and continued on.

He pulled up to a building that was in slightly better condition than the ones surrounding it, and recognized the car next to his as the one that Dirk drove. At least he hadn't been lied to about needing to be at this place, he thought, before getting out and going inside the building. "Hello?" he called out, not seeing his brother or, rather, anyone inside. "Anyone here? Dirk? Where are you at?" Instead of having a voice answer him, music softly started to play, music that startled Dave and made him completely drop his sense of "cool guy" and enter a panic mode. "What's going on here? Where are you, bro? I need you to come out here and cut this out! I don't have the time for this!"

From somewhere else in the building, a door opened, the music slowly getting louder in the moments after. "Dave? Is that you?" he heard Rose's voice ask. "What are you doing here? My mom called me here to discuss family matters and I'm looking for her! You should be elsewhere!" He couldn't see her, but he was sure she was rolling her eyes at him.

"I was told to come here to talk to Dirk about _our_ family matters!" he shouted back, not sure where exactly he should be yelling. "What are you doing here?"

"I already told you!"

"You told me the same reason I have!"

"That's the only reason!" Another door opened, followed by one slamming, and soon he could hear footsteps that were dainty yet loud—footsteps that could belong to no one but Rose. "I'm coming for you, Strider! Stop trying to ruin my life!"

As she entered the large room they were in, the lights came on and the music became loud enough to the point that Dave could tell what it was. "Why is the wedding march playing?" he asked out loud, looking up at the ceiling. "I'm here to talk about a dead uncle's stuff, not see a wedding."

Rose, mid-run as the music got loud, froze when Dave made his realization. "You're right, that is indeed the wedding march, and I'm here to speak to my mother about a dead relative..." She looked towards him as he looked back down to her. "You don't think they've devised a plan, do you?"

"A plan for what?"

She took a deep breath, trying to collect herself before speaking. "For getting my mother to access your brother's money."

"What do you mean? She's not family, and I'm not watching my very gay brother marry her just so she can use his money." Dave crossed his arms. "Sorry, but it's not happening."

"I don't think it's them that'll be getting married..." Instead of another deep breath, Rose swallowed down hard. "Look at us. You're wearing a tuxedo, looking as dapper as you ever will, and I'm in a very nice dress that I've been saving for a day like today."

"So maybe we look nice. Doesn't mean that we want to be part of their wedding." Dave turned his attention to the music again. "Can you turn this the fuck down, please? We're trying to discuss what's going on, and it's hard to think when the music is so loud!"

He didn't get a response, and Rose had to stifle a laugh at him. "You're trying hard to distract from the situation at hand, Dave. I don't like you and you don't like me, but I think my mom and your brother are going to use us as their way of getting around the contract."

"And how will they manage that?"

"Let's see, you have a legally binding document that lets your brother somewhat control your life, I have a mother that I rely on for most things in my life. They tell us to get married, right here, right now, we have to do it." She bit her lip in nervousness. "I don't want to do it."

From behind his sunglasses, Dave's eyes widened. "You're serious, aren't you?" She nodded. "I've never kissed a girl before. I'm not marrying one I don't like. Especially not one that has a girlfriend."

"Yes, me having a girlfriend would make a forced marriage between us slightly difficult. But if they say so, we have to do it, I guess. I just wish I hadn't signed those papers the other night." Rose covered her face with her hands as she continued to speak. "My mother had me signing things for work, like I'm supposed to, and I didn't think to check each paper that I signed...what if one of those allowed this to happen? They're best friends, so my mother could have easily had Dirk pull legal strings to get us in an arranged marriage..."

Instead of listening to her speak, Dave was busy on his phone, checking the time and seeing if there were any strange messages from his brother to clue him in to what was going on. There was nothing, but it was way longer than the ten minutes he was told this would be. "I've got to get going," he finally said, putting his phone back in his pocket. "I've got a real wedding to go help set up, so I'll just see you there later." He gave her a wave and headed back towards the front door, but before he got there his brother and Rose's mother stood before him. "Oh. Shit."

"Where do you think you're going, little bro?" Dirk asked, a smile on his face, before pulling a folded up paper from his pocket. "According to the second to last paragraph of your contract, you've got to be here. Didn't you read this?" He flicked the paper, the noise drowned out by the music that was still playing. "If I need you to make a life decision, you have to make it. Our parents know and they're fine with it. Roxy here needs it. So you're doing it."

"Couldn't this have waited until tomorrow or something? I have a wedding I need to get to."

Behind his triangular shades, Dirk let his smile get big enough to cause his eyes to close. "Oh, I know you have a wedding to get to. It's yours."

There was more debating, between all four people present, but every time an argument got started Dirk would read the exact wording of the document he held, sealing Dave and Rose's fate a bit more. And when Dave thought that arguing that Rose had nothing binding her to the arrangement, he was greeted with not a contract that she had accidentally signed, but rather the assurance from Roxy that her daughter would do what was best for their family. The longer they argued, the bleaker it looked for the two, until it was just impossible for them to make it to their previously scheduled event, and it was after hours of debate that they finally gave in to the demands of the older two.

At the exact same time that the wedding they should have been at was finishing up, with no desire whatsoever to actually do what they were forced into, the two begrudgingly signed all the papers they were presented with in order to fulfill the wishes of their families. And just like that, everything in their lives changed. For the first time ever, Dave saw his brother give someone they weren't directly related to money, followed with profuse thanks and them leaving, taking the papers with them.

Was the entire ceremony legal? He wasn't sure. It turned out that there had been officials standing right outside the church's doors, so there was a chance that it was legal and that he really was married to a bisexual woman that had a girlfriend and absolutely no interest in him. But as he got in his car and sped to where he knew the other wedding's reception was, he wasn't worried about any of that. He was worried about the reaction of his friends that he had skipped out on, about how they'd act when they saw him.

A slap to the face and a lot of yelling about how bad it was that he wasn't there was actually not the punishment he thought he'd get. But for having gone five months, from the time he got the invitation to a handful of days before the wedding, without messing anything up, maybe it was the punishment he deserved.

"What's your excuse, anyway?" Tavros angrily asked him, after calming down enough to speak in a language Dave understood. "Why weren't you there? Why did you miss it? Why would you swear you'd be somewhere and then ditch it at the last second?"

"Believe me dude, you wouldn't buy my story. It's totally true, but completely unbelievable."

Vriska rolled her eyes, her makeup smeared from the angry tears she had shed when she saw Dave walk in. "You've got to at least fucking try to explain it, douchebag. You don't skip someone's wedding without a good excuse."

"It's not a good excuse though. It's dumb. Never sign a paper without reading every word." He was slapped again with a perfectly manicured hand, the resulting mark stinging, especially where the ring on the hand hit. "What, you wanted the excuse and there you have it. I got fucked over by paperwork."

"You're dead to us. You ruined our big day."

He knew he had, and he felt bad about it, but there was nothing more he could say. However, there was something he could do, and breaking the rules set in the contract and paying completely for his friends to get to go on an actually decent honeymoon trip was the best thing he could think of. It smoothed the waters between them, so he considered it all settled. Then he remembered that he still hadn't told them that he got married the same day they did, and he realized that that wasn't the last of the problems he'd have to deal with stemming from that event.

The biggest problem, of course, was his new, unwilling bride.

* * *

**A/N: Originally published to Tumblr on November 25, 2013.**

**Dave's saga is the last of the three "main" acts of the fic, and believe me when I say that they're a doozy.**


	14. Act III Part II

**Act III Part II**

_Let's Not Be Decent People_

Being married against his will was almost always a pain in the neck, but there were some things that having a unwanted wife could not stop Dave from doing. One such thing was meeting his friends for lunch if they were available, and the only reason Rose wouldn't keep him from doing that was that if he hung out with his friends during the day, he wouldn't invite them at strange hours. So, as close to weekly as possible, Dave arranged a lunch with every single one of his friends, and the ones who made it were his best friends for the week.

Like every week before it, the only people who showed up were Karkat and Terezi, for several reasons: the day that the lunch was on was always meeting day at John's work, and he couldn't skip a meeting for his friends, no matter how much they meant to him; Tavros also had to work, but he was almost always at work during the afternoons and lunches couldn't be held at dinner time or else they would be known as dinners; Jade was busy not only watching Casey but Snow and Dante as well, meaning she wouldn't be able to leave even if she had wanted to; and last but not least, Vriska couldn't go because Dave made sure to schedule the lunch on one day of the week when she was always working.

The reason for that was simple, he wanted to be served by her and get to tip someone who he knew really deserved the money. She gave service that deserved a quality tip, not the fifty percent that Dave would leave for her, on top of whatever everyone else left, but she didn't argue with it, and the restaurant's management knew that she wasn't faking the tips. The job she had and the money she got from it were not things she'd risk losing when she was always with barely enough money to get by.

This particular lunch, things went downhill fast when, while he was getting ready to go out and eat, Rose called him from work and asked him if it would be okay if she had lunch with them as well. He didn't say no to her, because his friends did like her, and they were legally married and should do things every once in a while to prove that. She never once mentioned that she'd be bringing her girlfriend Meenah along, and when the two showed up arm-in-arm, Dave knew that trouble was brewing.

"I got a table for four, Rose, not five. We can't sit with Vriska if there's five of us," he said, pointing at the black-haired woman that was linked with his wife. "She needs to go."

"We can pull a chair up to the table and they can all deal with it. Meenah and I haven't been spending much time together lately, and a nice lunch with friends will remedy that problem." As rude as always Rose glared at Dave until he gave in to the reality that this woman he didn't like or really know would be dining with them, all because of another woman he really didn't like.

It got worse when Karkat and Terezi showed up, bringing with them two children that Dave hadn't actually seen since that baby shower adventure he had put together the previous summer. "Sorry that we brought these brats along," Karkat said, his voice rather apologetic for the gruff guy he tried to be, "but we're in charge of them for the foreseeable future and they won't go to any babysitter without a fight."

"That makes seven of us, and last time I checked, seven asses can't fit in four chairs." Instantly realizing that he had cursed in front of small and impressionable children, he covered his mouth, before turning to glare back at Rose (who was still glaring at him from when she arrived). "We can't sit with Vriska and that means she doesn't get a tip from me this week. Fuck."

"Covering your mouth doesn't mean Justice and Cherry can't hear you still!" Terezi's voice was grating as always, but added in with the fact that his weekly event that did good for a friend in need was effectively ruined, and it almost gave him a headache.

"Listen, I don't really care if those kids hear me, okay? I've got a bigger problem to deal with, and that is how we're going to include Vriska in all of this if there's too many of us!" Luckily there was a slight fix to the problem, seating them all in a cushy booth right near where their friend was taking her tables, so that she could stop by and chat with them if she wasn't busy. And, as a bonus, the woman who was serving them, some short and very curvy lady named Feferi, was a friend of Vriska's who she had been working with since way before she had this particular job. Things, although not how he would have liked them, were starting to actually go well.

"What are all these people doing here?" Everyone at the table, aside from the children, turned their heads at the sound of the shrill voice. Standing at the side of the table was Vriska, notepad for taking orders in hand and a confused look on her face. "I told you I only had tables that seat four, Dave. Can't you listen?"

He rolled his eyes behind his shades. "I can listen just fine, thanks. Rose brought her girlfriend along, and Karkat couldn't get out of babysitting duty. Sorry if you've got a problem with that, but it's just how it's gotta be today."

"Eh, it's really whatever. I'm sure I'll be able to squeak by without your tip money this week." She laughed, before walking off to one of her tables that had been recently sat. Everyone watched her, especially Dave, who did feel quite bad about not being able to help her out. The sarcasm in her voice before she left told the story, that his money helped her family a lot.

"See, this is why we don't bring extras to lunch," he hissed once he knew she wasn't possibly going to overhear him. "We fuck Vriska over if we bring extras to lunch."

"Language!" Terezi yelled, at the same time Karkat began explaining why they had brought extras along for the second time since they had arrived at the restaurant. Rose just sighed and lovingly stroked her girlfriend's arm, not caring that she was angering Dave even more by doing it. But she was angering him, and if it weren't for the fact that their server came to the table, he would have snapped and sent them all home.

The sight of someone much shorter than Vriska at the head of the table did catch Dave off guard a bit, but when she started asking for orders he had to calmly remember that she, this Feferi chick, had to take care of them because his friends had failed to inform him they were bringing others along. She seemed friendly enough, although she did have an air about her that felt like she didn't need the money she'd be making off of them. "You're all Vriska's regulars, right?" she asked, once she had their drink order down. "Her friends?"

"That's right. We come in and see her every single week." Karkat pointed to himself, Terezi, and finally Dave. "Or, rather, the three of us do. We, ahem, fucked up a bit this week and brought some other people along." He was slapped on the shoulder by Terezi for it, but he knew that the curse word was well-placed and needed.

She laughed, a distinct bubbly giggle that made Dave want to sock her in the face. "Well that's okay! It's nice to get to serve you _and_ my family today!" She motioned to the table next to the one they were at, a small set-up for no more than two people. "Maybe you all will be friends and we could all hang out sometime! Vriska's always talking about how great her friends are, after all."

"Yeah, I think we'll take a rain check on that one," Dave sarcastically replied. "We don't hang out with anyone outside our group. Hell, it's only because I'm married to the damn bitch that she's here." He pointed a finger at Rose, who flipped him off. "And it's only because we're married against her will that this other chick is here." His pointing turned to Meenah, who gave him the same gesture Rose did. "So don't think we're gonna be friends with your family."

Feferi took a step back, nodding as Dave went on, and the second she finished she turned and headed out of the room. "That's no way to treat the wait staff, you know," Rose said, her voice condescending. "You should be more polite. Now you'll have to tip her double, and she'll be able to rub it in Vriska's face."

"Listen here, Rose, I don't have time for your bullshit. I told it like it is, and she couldn't handle it." He shrugged. "And before anyone tells me to stop cursing, I really do not give a rat's ass if those kids can hear me. They shouldn't fucking be here." His outburst, even if it was all said calmly and in a near-monotone, angered everyone he was with aside from the two children, who stared at him in wide-eyed wonder. The group remained silent until they were given their drinks, but the second Feferi stepped away again after getting what they wanted written down, they were back to not speaking to each other in anything above a whisper.

Dave started to stand up, to walk around and cool his head before he did anything rash, but Vriska's appearance stopped him. "I think I just saw someone I never thought I'd see again," she hurriedly said, taking a few deep breaths. "How the fuck did he end up here?"

"Which he are you talking about?" Terezi, having completely given up on stopping anyone from corrupting her nephew and niece with the cursing, didn't so much as mention Vriska's word choice. "Is it your dad? Wait, have you ever even seen your dad?"

"No, it's not my dad." She knelt down next to the table and rested her head on her hands. "It's someone worse. Someone I thought I left behind when I got with Tavros."

Terezi paused for a second, before trying again. "Your...mom?"

"Ugh, no!" Vriska got back to her feet and shook her head, wringing her hands as she did. "I'm going to go talk to my tables and hope he doesn't see me. Don't start shit with him, you hear?" As no one knew who she was talking about, no one really knew how to react, and so she left with a deep sigh and more head shaking.

"Auntie, I gotta go potty," one of the children said, tugging at Terezi's arm. Dave looked over long enough to see that it was Justice, the older one, who was saying it, and as he was male, she deferred it to Karkat, who required Dave to get up so that he could get himself and the child out of the booth. Once he was re-situated, the other child, Cherry, started to whine in broken sentences that she had to go too. Since Terezi was mostly blind and probably not the best adult to have escort a kid who wasn't fully potty-trained to the bathroom, she managed to convince Rose (and by extension Meenah) to take her instead.

That left just Dave and Terezi sitting at the table when things started happening around them. Those bubbly giggles were heard, and as Dave turned to look to see what Feferi was doing, and if she was bringing them their food, he saw that she was leading some scrawny-looking guy into the room, and he looked like he was talking to her about something. She led him to the table next to theirs, leading Dave to believe that he was either Feferi's brother or lover, and since he was the exact opposite of her physically, his features sharp compared to her rounded ones, it had to have been the second option.

She scurried off once he was seated, and Dave stared at him, something about this man that seemed so familiar to him. "What's going on?" Terezi asked in a hushed whisper. "I can't tell what's happening over there."

"Eh, just looks like our waitress is banging a decently attractive guy, that's all." He shrugged, trying to figure out where he had seen someone who looked like him before. "If you could see, I'm sure you'd be all over him. He looks like your kind of guy."

"I don't know about that," she replied with a laugh, before thanking Dave for filling her in on what she was missing. The giggling started up again, and Terezi was about to ask what was causing it, if there was another guy or something, but Dave happened to turn and see what Feferi was doing now and audibly gasped. It was one thing for him to gasp ironically, but this was gasping in genuine shock.

Their waitress was leading in someone Dave knew as Rose's ex-girlfriend, who was most definitely as bisexual as Rose herself was, and she was sporting a rather sizable stomach bump. When she was directed to the table, it left Dave with many more questions than he knew he'd get answers for, the most pressing of which being what the fuck was going on with Mr. Pointy Face, Rose's ex, and the too-bubbly Feferi.

* * *

"That's definitely her," Rose said, once she was back to the table with her arms wrapped around Meenah in a tender embrace to bother anyone who would care. Her face was red with anger, though, and it was apparent that she was a bit peeved that her ex was in the same building as her. "I can't believe this."

"You don't think they're sisters or something, do you?" Karkat was attempting to help the situation a bit, by throwing out any suggestions he could think of. "Because if they're not, then this is something really fucking weird that we're witnessing."

"No, no, I would have heard of it if she had a sister, and the only cousin she has is tall, slender, and nothing like Feferi." After taking a few deep breaths to control her anger, she continued to speak. "I think that she left me for the sake of a threesome. It's not something she would ever do, but it seems to be the only logical explanation right now."

At the same time as each other, Dave and Meenah, who had remained mostly silent the entire time, looked at Rose and said, "Fuck logic." They then glared at each other, due to the other stealing the sentiment they were feeling and wanting to share.

"I would love to fuck logic, but I simply cannot do that. I dated that girl. I know how she works. She did prefer men to women after all. I told her that was how it was, and she assured me that it wasn't true. What a liar." She rested her head on Meenah's shoulder. "I never thought I'd see her again, and here she is."

They all hushed up as Feferi approached the table, bringing with her their meals and a bunch of unanswered questions that no one wanted to address. As tempting as it was to ask about the duo at the table next to them, it was the safe option to just ignore it all and act as if nothing was going on at all. She could sense that there was something wrong, and left them rather quickly to go talk to her special guests, but once she was done with them, things took a turn for the weird. They were maybe a handful of bites into their food when the gentleman from the table came over to them, his eyes set solely on Dave. "Excuse me," he said, giving Dave a small wave. "Are you a local DJ?"

"As a matter of fact, I am," he replied, looking up and smiling at the man. Sure, he looked oddly familiar and was involved in something strange, but if he knew who he was, then Dave just had to be polite. "How do you know of me?"

"I saw you on a billboard ad the other day and tuned into your show that night." Some of the letters in the man's sentence were said with extra emphasis, a speech tic that only slightly bothered everyone who was listening—except for Terezi, whose mostly sightless eyes were narrowing in disgust. "You were very entertaining, and it's nice to see such talent in the flesh."

"Hold off on the compliments, you dirty pig." Dave was just about to thank the man, but Terezi's angry words interrupted him. "I should have guessed she was talking about you."

"Who the...Terez?" The man stepped closer to the table, leaning forward to look closely at Terezi to see her better. "Terezi Pyrope? Went to school with me? Used to play some D &amp; D back in the day?" He sounded very excited to be recognized, but then he snorted. "Guess you really did go blind, huh? Deserved it, bitch."

She attempted to stand up, but the table prevented her from getting to her feet. "If I was closer to you, I'd sock you in that ugly face of yours."

"Whatever." The guy gave a dramatic sigh, accompanied by an eyeroll behind his big-rimmed and fake glasses, as he stood back to full height and smiled. "I'm just here to meet DJ Stride Swag, that's all." The way he pronounced the name Dave had taken for his business in music made everyone start to laugh, angering the man more than being called a pig did. "What the fuck is your problem? Did Terez there tell you a bunch of lies about me? You can't trust her, she had her mind tainted by that ignorant slut Vris..." He shuddered, and the laughter stopped, replaced by questioning stares and displeased huffs. "What's the problem now?"

"'Kay, dude, thought you were just a fan, but now you're getting a bit too weird for my tastes." Dave slid out of the booth and stood, his full height barely an inch under the new guy's. "What's _your_ problem, talking shit about our friend when she's not even here?"

"Only person I talked any shit about was Vris, and why would someone with such refined tastes in music like yourself know who she is? She's a disgusting wench." Without so much as a warning, Dave attacked the guy, grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back, before demanding that he say who he was and explain himself. "Ow, you fucker! The name's Eridan. Not like you've ever heard it before, I'm sure."

"Hey hey, what is happening here?" Feferi, rushing to the scene, was able to get Dave off of Eridan without even getting physically involved, as her being a witness to the event could potentially have gotten him banned from the restaurant, and the last thing he wanted was to be unable to help his friend out anymore. "Were you two really just fighting?"

"Wasn't much of a fight, Fef. He attacked me for doin' what I do and talkin' shit about Vris. You know how it is."

She looked from the two guys, Dave sitting back down and Eridan just standing there, staring back at her with an expression that simply said he felt he was innocent, over to where Vriska was in the opposite corner, helping out one of her tables. "...You mean, this entire time, you've been talking bad about someone I work with and I didn't know it? Better yet, you dated someone I've known for years?"

"Vriska isn't a common name, Fef! How could you have thought there'd be more than one bitch by that name!" He threw his hands in the air, purposely knocking a plate off of the table as he did. "I can't believe you're friends with her and you work together an—wait. Get her over here. Now."

The malicious smile that was forming on his lips was enough to get Dave to stand back up, cracking his knuckles as he did. He wasn't going to let this guy get anywhere close to Vriska. But it was Rose, with a few words, who did more damage at that moment than any fist could. "May I ask a simple question?" she started, but continued without getting any answer. "What relation to you both is the woman that came in with you, Eridan?"

"Hm, Kan? She's our fuckin' girlfriend, that's who she is." He focused his attention on Rose, who was shaking her head in disbelief. "Do you have a problem with that, just like everyone else seems to have a problem with somethin' or other?"

"I do have a problem with it. What did you do to my Kanaya?" The use of the word _my_ in her sentence earned her a few whispered objections from Meenah, but Rose was more worried about what had happened to her ex-girlfriend than the issues her current one had with the situation. "She wouldn't ever want that for herself."

"How would you know that? She's not yours and she did want it, so stay out of our personal business." Eridan had taken to the defensive, and he had Feferi repeating over and over that it was something that they had agreed to, that Kanaya had wanted it, that she had been eager and willing to participate.

Yet Rose didn't buy a word of it and ended the conversation abruptly when she got up, spat directly in Eridan's face, and demanded for Meenah to follow her. The dark-haired woman almost followed through without any issue, but when she was passing by Feferi, she stopped in her tracks. "You're a Peixes. A fish babe, ain't ya?"

Thinking that all the arguing and fighting was over, even with Eridan standing beside her fuming that he had been degraded by some woman, Feferi cheerfully nodded. "Sure am! What makes you bring that up?"

"A fish babe workin' in a place like this for li'l money? Somefin don't make sense here, but I'm not shore what it is." She placed her hands on her hips and leaned into her face. "Water you doin' here, fish babe? I fuckin' looked up to your family, changed my name to Peixes 'cuz of your family, and yet you work in a place like this! What's up with that?"

"Well, you see, when I met Eridan, my family made me pick between him or their money, and while living the life of an heiress was fun, falling in love was so much mo—" She was cut off by Meenah screaming. "—huh? What's the problem?"

"You gave up bein' head fish babe for a shrimp like him? Ugh, water ya gonna do when he leaves you for the woman you let him sleep with? Really, water ya gonna do?"

"As she's my girlfriend just as much as she is his, I don't think that'll ever be a problem." It wasn't the answer Meenah wanted, and she returned to following Rose out of the place, grumbling the entire way out about how her dreams of fish family royalty were dashed by the behavior of someone who had been her idol.

At the table, Karkat got close to Terezi's ear and whispered to her, "Are you listening to what you started? Call one guy a pig and we end up learning about a threesome and someone's weird-as-shit fish kink."

"In hindsight, maybe attacking someone I haven't heard about since graduating high school wasn't the brightest idea. But, hey, free entertainment." She shrugged. "I bet Vriska's having fun listening to all of this, if she is."

"I don't think she is, Terezi. I think this has managed to get her upset, because she hasn't taken one fucking step closer to us than the furthest table in the room." He scanned the room for Vriska and, like he had just said, she was over in the corner, assisting the guests there and trying not to pay any attention to the commotion. "Maybe we should go now, before she does get involved and these kids see a cat fight."

Terezi didn't argue with the logic, and without any fanfare or additional attacking, the couple and the two kids they were now in charge of left the same way Rose had minutes before. That just left Dave standing there in a fighting stance, Eridan clearly angry and ready to hurt someone, and Feferi blinking in a stunned silence from what Meenah had said to her. When Eridan decided to sit back down and ignore Dave completely, that was his cue to take his leave, first asking for the check to pay and then leaving only the exact amount of money to cover the meal, no more and no less.

He expected to be able to leave with no more trouble, but no sooner than he reached the front door did he feel a hand on his shoulder. "Unhand me, or I'll swing," he threatened, before looking to see who was there. Instead of that rude Eridan, like he had thought it would be, it was Vriska.

"What did you do all that for?" she asked, letting go of him just in case he would still throw a punch at her. "Did you guys really have to start a fight with them?"

"It's your fault in the end. Terezi started it, and then he said some shit about you, and then it went downhill from there. I shouldn't have greeted him, but he was a fan." He pushed his shades up on his nose a bit. "A fan that I knew from someone. Wish I would have remembered I'd seen him in one of your old yearbooks, to be honest."

She gave him an exasperated look as he turned to face her. "I'm really okay with you trying to put him in his place, and that's not the problem. The problem is that you did it here, where me and Feferi work. So maybe I should have learned she was dating him...that they've been together ever since I met her...but that's not the point!" She put both hands on his arms and shook him a bit. "The point is that you are known as _my_ guests, and you behaved like this. What if they fire me?"

"They're not going to fire you, Vriska. They try and I will pay them to not." He smirked, but let it fade when he saw the look that was still on Vriska's face. "You're not pleased, are you? Damn it."

"I'm not pleased because I'm pretty sure they're going to send Feferi home for the day, and that means double work for me. All because you guys started this fight." She sighed. "Guess it's a good money opportunity, since I didn't get your tip today..."

He thought for a second, sticking his hand into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. From inside the wallet he grabbed a small amount of cash, lifting it to show Vriska as he put his wallet away. "Here, take this. Dirk can suck it up and understand that you need money."

She gasped, taking it and shoving it in her pocket. "Dave, you're such a great friend. A huge jerk, but a great friend." She was going to hug him, but the sound of Eridan's voice yelling for the "rude asshole" to not leave made her get nervous and step away. "I can't deal with him here, sorry," she apologized. "Just don't fight too much more. I really don't need to lose my job over my ex."

"Got it, got it," he said with a handwave, and she walked away as fast as she could to escape any possible confrontation and to get back to work. Eridan appeared within seconds, his pale face bright red with lasting anger. "Yo, fuckface, what do you want from me now?"

"I want to know why that fuckin' happened, and I wanna know right now." He pushed Dave up against the glass a bit, a hollow noise echoing through the lobby as he hit. "Tell me, Stride Swag. Tell me why a cool dude like yourself is a huge douche."

"I'm a douche for standing up for my friend? Oh that's nice to know. I'll make sure to ask my listeners how they feel about that on my next broadcast." He tried to get free of Eridan's grasp but couldn't manage it. "Let me go, dude."

"I need answers. Fef's in there cryin' thanks to that fish bitch, and she's questionin' ever getting with me. Why did that happen?"

He attempted to shrug. "No idea. Meenah isn't my friend and I couldn't justify her actions if I tried."

"Whatever. I know Fef won't leave me. As for that other woman...why was she askin' about Kan? It's obvious me and Fef and Kan are all together, so why would she accuse me of doin' unspeakable stuff to Kan?" He sighed and loosened his grip. "I'm just a loving guy. A loyal man. Ive got two girlfriends, yeah, and almost kids with them both, but did I do somethin' wrong?"

Dave, finally squirming away, couldn't help but laugh. "You started shit with me and my friends, that's what. Next time, keep your dick comments about Vriska to yourself, will you?" He didn't stick around for an answer, leaving without any more resolution to the problem. There just didn't seem to be much more he could do without causing someone to suffer, and with the chance that it would be Vriska who would pay for his behavior, he couldn't risk it.

* * *

"So that Feferi girl you've worked with forever, she's been dating Eridan the whole time?" Tavros' voice was filled with skepticism, as if the proposition was just too unreal. "And you didn't find out until now?"

Vriska nodded, as she played her Gameboy with Snow on her lap. "Yep, that's right. It never came up, I guess. But now I know never to invite her over to dinner." She cracked a smile and laughed, which caused the chain reaction of Snow giggling and, from right between his parents, Dante started to snort from happiness. "Aw, you kiddos, that wasn't a 'ha' laugh, that was a sad laugh. Not like you get the difference."

Tavros shifted his eyes from his family over to where Dave sat, up against the door with his phone in hand. "Did you make him pay for attacking you?"

"Nope, didn't even handle the situation. I just got out of there. Your wife convinced me to not beat the shit out of that dick." He shrugged, flipping through a bunch of incoming messages to his phone. "If it weren't for her, I'd probably be sitting in the slammer right now."

"'Reeps!" Snow started screaming, causing everyone to turn their attention to her. She had her hands wrapped around the game, trying to pull it from Vriska's grasp. "Give 'Reeps, game!" Her outburst, which continued on for several minutes, left everyone there at a loss for words. They had been discussing the incident at the restaurant ever since Vriska had gotten home, and Snow and her little electric sheep fascination was the first real distraction the entire time.

"She's so cheerful. Kinda cute for a little brat." Dave, not looking from his phone's screen, frowned when Snow's screaming turned from Pokémon to wanting to play with his phone. "Hey, no little babies touching this, you hear? I had to deal with kids today and I wasn't prepared for that. These two, yes, I'm always up for playing with my best bro's kids. Those kids...no."

"Since when am I your best bro?"

He shrugged. "Since you became cool, actually hung out with me, and didn't unexpectedly bring children with you to lunch. Guess I taught Terezi's nephew a few choice words, though. Karkat's telling me he's been cursing up a storm, and I guess he also punched his sister in the face?"

"...Maybe you should leave before you teach Snow something she shouldn't know, _mijo_." It was very rare for Tavros to slip any sort of Spanish into conversation, but when he did it meant that he was being serious, and it almost always involved his kids. "Or, at least, if you're gonna curse around my babies, do it so they can't understand it."

"Your fuckin' kids can't grasp most of what I say, so I don't think there's a problem."

"_Cierra el hocico,_ Dave." He stood up, metal braces clanging against the floor. "I asked you to leave, and that means go." He started for where Dave was sitting, but the message had been given loud and clear, and within a minute Dave was gone. "Ugh, I hope he doesn't hate me for that. But he should know that cursing around these guys isn't allowed."

"You still cursed around them." Vriska, holding her game far from Snow's insistent hands, smiled at him. "You just did it in a language no one else understands."

From the other side of the door he had just closed, Dave tried to search the internet for whatever Tavros had told him, because a curse to use in front of Terezi's niblings would be a curse that got him kicked out of an easygoing family's apartment. His attempt at spelling whatever he had been told was futile, and so he made his way back down to his place, hoping that his adventures of the day and the fights that had happened were a one-time thing, and that when he'd wake up the next morning, he'd never have a real argument with hurt feelings again.

* * *

**A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on March 12th, 2014.**

**What Tavros says at the end roughly translates to "shut the fuck up." And what's going to happen next? Who knows. See ya next week.**


	15. Act III Part III

**Act III Part III**

_Let's Not Keep Friends_

Of all the places to keep an inflatable swimming pool meant for children, the second bedroom in Dave's apartment was one of the least ideal locations, right next to a concrete floor, a porch, or a giant hill. But as it was an apartment, and he didn't have a lawn to put his pool on, the spare room was the best place he had access to. Why he even had the pool was a mystery to everyone, as the apartment complex had a pool open to all residents, but it was there and it was a thing that everyone had to respect and be completely mindful of when it came to coming and visiting him.

On most occasions, he made sure that no one dared to enter it, especially the small children that would find their way into his apartment. But on this particular night, with all possible kids as far away as they could get, he was comfortable with letting some of his friends chill out in the pool with him. That meant swimsuits, lots of drinks, and talking between him, Karkat, and Terezi, as they sat in water that barely covered their legs in the spare bedroom.

"I think we should make this a weekly thing," he said, sipping on a freshly-opened beer, "because let's be honest. Sitting in this thing alone is lame."

"You know you do have a wife to sit in here with you," Karkat replied, before drinking from his own beverage of choice. "But let me guess, you like to ignore the fact that you're legally married to a lesbian."

Dave rolled his eyes, setting his can down on the towel next to the pool. "I do like to forget that she lives here sometimes and occasionally fucks a pun-spewing woman in my bed, yes. The being married to her part really means nothing to me."

"Oh, you sound like you're a bit jealous that the fish bitch gets action and you don't." Karkat's comment was replied to with a kick and water splashed in his face. "Hey, I'm just telling it like it is. You want to get laid by her, lesbian or not."

"I would rather have my dick cut off by a butter knife than have it anywhere near her." Once again he rolled his eyes, before turning to Terezi and hoping that she wouldn't want to talk about his lack of a sex life. "So, you up for sitting in here weekly?"

"Depends on if it's going to end up like lunch, where the same thing happens every week and it's old and stale. If yes, then no, I'd rather listen to movies with Justice and Cherry than this. If no, then sure, as long as it's always fun." She smiled, her head turned so that she was looking straight at him. "But really, it's a pool. It can't be fun forever."

"I think I can buy some stuff to spice this thing up. Bubble machine, maybe?" He shrugged. "But as long as someone's up for it, I think this is definitely going to happen more." His drink ended up in his hand again and he sipped on it once more, only stopping when he heard someone knocking at the door. "Did either of you invite someone?" he asked, as he set his drink back down and stood up, making sure to step on the towel and wrap himself up in another one.

They both shook their heads, as confused about the knocking as he was, which worried him a bit. Had something happened? Was this one of his other friends coming over and getting mad about him not inviting them? When he opened the door, he was met with the smell of fresh-made pizza, which answered both of his questions at once. "Uh, yo, didn't order anything," he told the teenage boy who was doing the delivery. "You've got the wrong place."

"The manager said that this is where I should deliver it," the boy said in response, shoving the pizza towards Dave. "He said that it's not our responsibility to go past this floor."

"Well your manager can suck a dick or two, because I didn't order the pizza and you can't expect me to pay for it."

"The manager said you'll pay for it."

He sighed, because he had this exchange with every single delivery person who ever came to his door for anything that wasn't his own, and with reason: sometime back in the past, someone had said the stairs to the third floor were too dangerous for deliveries to go up, and therefore the people on the second floor could foot the bill for anything. Which normally meant Dave was paying for anything the people above him wanted, and he got paid back when they came to get it. "Yeah, yeah, okay, lemme go get you some cash. How much is the order?"

The delivery boy told him the exact amount, but Dave ignored it and grabbed two twenties from his wallet which was located right by the door in case of this exact thing happening. When he handed the money to the boy in exchange for two pizzas and an order of breadsticks with sauce, the boy smiled. "Thanks, mister. No wonder people like delivering to your building. You're a swell dude."

"Whatever, I'm just doing what's right. Now tell that manager of yours that the stairs aren't dangerous and you people can go up them, okay?" Dave gave the boy a pleading look, but he seemed too pleased with his money to notice it. When he was gone, the door was closed and the pizzas were put on the kitchen counter as Dave went back into the bedroom with the kiddie pool. "Someone upstairs ordered pizza," he explained to his friends. "That's what the interruption was all about."

"Did you pay for it?" Terezi asked, and when he said he did she shook her head. "Damn it Dave, you can't do that. What if the person who bought it doesn't want it after all?"

"Then there's pizza for me." He shrugged. "I see no problem here."

She groaned, grabbing at Karkat's arm and startling him. "I'm mostly blind and _I _see a problem here. And I'm sure Karkat sees it too. You can't just buy other people's things!"

"It's literally something he's done like once a week since he bought this place, 'Rez," Karkat said, prying her fingers off of his arm. "He's fucking used to it, which is really lame, but it's what he does. Dave does stupid shit like that."

"I get it, he's trying to be all nice and everything, but come on! You legally bought it, which makes it yours. So what if you didn't order it?" Terezi, who had always been one for following laws and being as civil as possible, was definitely more for breaking the rules when she was slightly intoxicated. The pizzas weren't Dave's, but he did pay for them, and that meant he could eat them if he wanted to, a fact he had never really thought about until that very moment. "I say we feast on pizza like royalty, my friends."

"Never thought I'd say this, but you're right Terezi. Let's go eat those pizzas!" Karkat and Terezi got out of the pool while Dave headed back to the kitchen, where food he hadn't wanted or even thought of ordering awaited him. The pizzas were rather lame, one being cheese and one with a variety of vegetables on it, but they were a delicious and unexpected treat to have. There was a slight sinking feeling in Dave's chest as he and his friends ate, one that directly dealt with whoever had ordered this meal and was inevitably going to come to pick it up.

As much as he should have expected it, he was not prepared for one of his other friends to knock on the door a few times in a specific, well-known pattern. "Come in," he called out at whoever was there, just for Tavros to walk in with some cash in his hand. "Oh, it's you. Hey."

"Hey, I figured my pizza got delivered here and, uh..." Tavros let his sentence trail off into a mess of random mumbles, as he looked between the three people who had situated themselves on the couch, all of whom had pieces of vegetable-topped pizza in their hands. "I thought you liked meat on your pizza."

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure do." Setting the slice back in the box on the table in front of them, Dave stood up and approached Tavros. "Now if you'd kindly leave, I don't have anything for you here."

"You're acting really weird, Dave. Have you been drinking?" He didn't need an answer to that, because when Dave got close enough he was able to faintly smell alcohol on him. "Guess you have been. Look, I know you've got my order here and I even brought you the money for it this time." He held up the cash, waving it around a bit. "Can I get my food, please?"

Dave shook his head. "Nope. I don't have it."

"You don't?"

"Nah, they must have delivered it somewhere else. Check next door, I think the old geezer there gets as many deliveries as I do." He broke his typically stoic demeanor to give the biggest shit-eating grin he could muster, and somehow Tavros bought it. He left the apartment, and Dave sat back down, laughing as he did. "What a dumbass. How doesn't he know that this is his order?"

The door came flying back open, for Tavros hadn't walked any further than the other side of it, and Dave was speaking loud enough to be heard outside. "What was that? Did you just say that's _mine_?"

"He sure fucking did," Karkat replied with a smirk. "He paid for it, it's his."

"No, it's not his! I ordered it and they delivered it here, but that doesn't make it his!" The door was slammed shut and Tavros came charging towards the three as fast as he could, his leg braces clacking against the floor. "You are eating the pizza that's supposed to feed my family tonight!"

"He paid for it, which means he owns it." Finishing her piece, Terezi reached for another one before continuing her thought. "That means this is his and you have no right to it."

"Dave doesn't even like pizza without meat on it!"

The mentioned man shrugged as he grabbed the piece he had been eating. "While I do enjoy the taste of pepperoni, what can I say? Your veggie-only pizza is pretty damn delicious."

"You fucker, you even know it's my pizza and yet you're still eating it!" Tavros swung a fist at Dave, who dodged it and allowed him to hit the wall instead. A loud echo filled the room from the impact, which just angered Tavros more. "You're a dick, you know that? You're always doing shit like this and it's not funny!"

"I think it's funny. I didn't even order this pizza and I'm eating it." Dave smiled again, which pushed Tavros to the point that if it was possible, he would have steam coming out of his ears. "I rightfully paid for this, which I can do with the money I have."

"Shut the fuck up."

But Dave was not going to shut up. "I love being white and having a job and a rich brother. I love having the money to tip the delivery guys, which you never pay me, you dirty wetback."

Audible gasps could be heard from Karkat and Terezi both, who realized just how far Dave had gone. Tavros too knew how far things had progressed, as evidenced by how red his face was with anger. "I said shut the fuck up. Did you not hear me?"

"Gonna have to run it by me again, _ese_. Not understanding you with your accent."

"_¡Vete a la mierda!_" It was never a good moment when Tavros started using Spanish at anyone, and when he was not only throwing punches that Dave was dodging, but screaming in a language no one understood, he was at his maddest. "You're a fucking dick!"

"I've heard worse." Grinning like he was enjoying making his friend so mad, Dave just continued to dodge what was being thrown at him. "Keep yelling at me, you know how happy it makes me."

"Oh, I will, _¡hijo de puta! _You've crossed the line too far this time for me to quit without making you suffer!" More punches were thrown, with only one connecting with Dave's face. It didn't phase him, however, and the grinning and yelling continued. "_¡Concha de su madre!_"

Terezi blinked a few times, before shaking Karkat's arm in worry. "I think we should stop this before someone thinks someone's mom is being prostituted in here. I may not speak Spanish, but I understand enough to know what he keeps yelling."

"Yeah, maybe you're right," Karkat replied, standing up and attempting to restrain Tavros. "Let's calm the fuck down and be friends, okay? No more fighting."

"You don't fucking slur at me and get away with it!" Tavros screamed, making Karkat feel as if he was going to go deaf in one ear. "He's a little bitch and I'm going to make him suffer for it!"

"All over a pizza dinner?"

Rather than listening to the reason that Karkat was trying to lay down, Tavros instead broke out of his grasp, threw the money he had been holding in Dave's face, grabbed what was left of the pizzas, and stormed out of the apartment. "I think that went over well," Dave said, rubbing at where he had been punched with one hand while he tucked the money in his waistband with the other. "I bet he'll be back to apologize later."

Neither Terezi nor Karkat wanted to point out that in order for Tavros to apologize for anything, Dave would have to apologize first for what he had said.

* * *

A couple of weeks later and it was back to the normal lunch hangout, the same people as always at what had become known as their regular table. "I can't wait to get off work today," Vriska said with a grin as she approached the table to greet her friends, "because does anyone know what today is?"

"Just another early May day," Dave replied, hoping that his unenthusiastic response would keep Vriska from going any further. He knew exactly what she was going to say, and he didn't want to hear it thanks to the events of that night with the drinking and the pizza. "Can you take our order now, please?"

Rather than press the issue, she complied with his demands. Once she had the order and was off the kitchen, Rose looked at Dave with curiosity in her eyes. "What's today to our dearest Vriska?"

"Don't ask me. I'm not speaking of it."

"But I totally am," Terezi interjected, waving her hand in front of Dave to get Rose's attention. "Today happens to be May fourth, which is Tavros' birthday. Which means she's probably got something nice planned for him."

Dave took a deep breath, trying not to snap at Terezi. "I've said it before, don't mention that asshole around me. Please. He made it hard for me to eat for a week."

"You called him a slur and ate his pizza. I'm surprised he didn't castrate you or something." Karkat took a sip of the water that had been waiting for them at the table when they arrived. "You were being a royal pain in his ass and deserved every bit of that bruise you got."

"Except not really? Now fucking drop this subject before I make you pay for the meal." The threat got everyone to stop talking about anything even remotely related to Tavros, but when Vriska came back with their food she was unaware of the change in topic.

After making sure their plates were to their liking, she pulled up a chair and began conversing with them like she didn't have a job to do. "So today's someone special's birthday, and instead of doing that geeky 'May the fourth be with you' thing I do every year, which he totally loves and appreciates, I think I'm going to throw him a little party. Sound good?"

Dave groaned and covered his ears, but the other three were receptive to the suggestion. "I better be invited," Terezi said, smiling as she tried to removed a hand from Dave's head so he could listen. "It's been a long time since we've partied hard."

"I, uh, don't actually want you guys there. When I say party, I mean a private one-on-one kind of thing." Everyone got what she was implying, but were still okay with the idea as a means of celebrating another year of age. "And whatever comes out of it, we'll be happy."

Karkat took the time to take another sip of water, before promptly spitting it back into his cup. "You're not talking about making yet another fucking demon, are you?"

"Hey! Snow and Dante are anything but demons! But yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Me and Tavros have discussed it a lot and we think we're ready. Besides, we wouldn't need to get anything since we have all our stuff from those two!" Even though there was some cheering going on from the three people who were happy, the low groan coming from Dave was enough to catch Vriska's attention. "What's your problem?"

"I'd rather die than know that there's another hellspawn courtesy of that bastard."

"Listen, Dave, I don't know what your problem with my husband is, but you should knock it off. He didn't do anything wrong." She stood up and put her chair back where it belonged, realizing that she probably should get back to work. "Your attitude better be different when I come back over here, or else I will not be happy. Got it?"

Even though he said he did get it, his displeasure towards the tall and tanned guy who lived on the floor above him that happened to be married to the lady that was serving him lunch did not go away at all in the time she was gone. In fact, as he thought about what she had said that he had tried so hard to ignore, it had only gotten worse. And if they managed to have their way, he thought that maybe he'd started to dislike her too.

* * *

A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on May 16th, 2014. (Or, better yet, almost a year ago. We're catching up to being caught up to the current stuff.)


	16. Act III Part IV

**Act III Part IV**

_Let's Not Celebrate Halloween_

Living in an apartment building on Halloween was probably one of the worst situations to be in, especially for someone like Dave who saw the holiday as nothing more than a time to get completely wasted. Kids who lived in the building and the ones surrounding it were always knocking at the door, asking him for candy when he had nothing more than expensive alcohol to give out, and it drove him absolutely insane.

Add in the fact that perennial Halloween guests Karkat and Terezi had to drag along her nephew and niece and it was a recipe for disaster. "What do you mean, you can't send them out on their own?" Dave asked, watching the two kids running around his apartment's main room in their costumes. "Isn't he like six or something? That's how old I was when I started trick-or-treating on my own."

"You can't put a six-year-old in charge of someone who's three," Terezi replied, squinting at Dave to try and see him better. "Besides, if we let them out on their own I'm sure Justice will hurt someone or Cherry will get stolen. Easy as that."

"So you're going to let them crash our party instead? How fucking lame is that." In the months since that fateful lunch outing with the fighting, the regulations on cursing in front of the niblings had been loosened, especially since Karkat wasn't ever able to keep his mouth closed on the matter long enough to make any difference. "I hope you realize that you're ruining this holiday for me."

"Like all the fucking brats who knock on the door each year don't ruin it more." Karkat, dressed as a very grumpy lobster (the costume shop hadn't had a single crab all year and he had to go with the next best thing), watched the two kids as they ran. "These two will be saints compared to the riffraff who we'll see tonight, promise."

"Or the riffraff we'll hear." Pulling her dragon mask onto her head, Terezi chuckled. "I won't be seeing anything with this on." To prove her point, she took a step forward and nearly trampled her niece, stepping on the little tail of her dinosaur costume and ripping it off. Cherry wasn't fazed by the almost near-death experience, until she looked at her aunt and screamed at the sight of a big scary dragon in the room. "Whoa, hey, who displeased the girl?"

Karkat couldn't help but snort at Terezi's ignorance. "You did."

"Oh. Well it's not like I can see anything."

Throwing his arms into the air, Dave made a sound that would be more often found coming from wild animals than humans. "What is with you people? This is not the Halloween party I was expecting! No one's even drunk yet and we're already dealing with stupid shit!"

"Sorry that I'm mostly blind." Terezi had pulled her mask back off and was helping calm the now-crying girl down. "And sorry that you live in a terrible apartment building."

As if it was a staged production, the door swung open right then, but instead of the candy-desiring children that Dave mentally feared it was, Rose came walking in, her cheeks red with anger. "What the fuck are you doing here?" Dave asked, honestly surprised to see his legal wife around when she probably had better things that she could be doing. "Did you mess your makeup up? Did Meenah decide that you weren't slutty enough?"

"Actually, she decided that it was too weird to have a girlfriend who's married, so she broke up with me." Rose shot Dave the middle finger before headed towards their unwillingly shared bedroom. "Don't come bother me until you're ready to start getting hammered."

"The way he's been talking, he's ready now," Karkat sarcastically said, and his reply from the blonde woman was the middle finger from her other hand. "Just telling it like it is."

She stopped at the end of the hall, turning to see everyone still in the living room. "I know you're telling it like it is, because if there's one thing Dave's better at than being a dick, it's getting smashed. And if he can do both at once, it's a great day for him. Especially when he's got orange wings attached to his arms."

Dave looked at himself, in an orange bodysuit with those wings making him look like an overgrown bird. "Hey, it's Halloween. At least I know how to get into the spirit."

"By drinking away your sanity and spending the next day completely hungover. I know how it is." Rose turned back around and went into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Dave sighed and shook his head, because having her around was the absolute last thing he had wanted—even higher on the list than the presence of children.

On the topic of the children, Justice, dressed as a little warrior complete with fake sword, had grown tired of running around and had found himself a comfortable spot in the corner closest to the front door, which was still wide open from Rose's entrance. "Are there going to be other kids, or is it just gonna be me and Cherry tonight?" he asked, looking up at Dave with eyes wide and wondering. "You said you were my age and you went out alone..."

"Yo, hey, not my problem. Your uncle pretty much said no to that plan and that means you get to be the DD tonight." Dave closed the front door as the sounds of small footsteps thundered down the stairs from an upper floor; it was starting time for the deluge of trick-or-treaters to make their rounds, and he didn't want someone thinking that his place was somewhere that free candy could be gotten.

"What's that?" Justice blinked a few times in confusion. "Is it fun?"

From against the wall, Karkat groaned. "We aren't making that kid drive us places. One, it's completely illegal. Two, he's six. Three, he wouldn't be able to reach the fucking pedals in anyone's car."

"Why are we making Justice drive?" Terezi had been distracted by cheering her niece up, but now that Cherry was back to being happy and running around she was able to put all her focus in the boys' conversation. "Are we assuming that we're going to drink our way through three cases of beer and six bottles of wine tonight?"

"There's four of us, now that Rose is here. With the way we waste alcohol, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if we were all shitfaced and out of drinks by midnight." Karkat leaned his head back and laughed. "Either that, or there'll be two and and half cases of beer left in the morning. There's no in-between with us."

"...So I'm gonna get to drive the big car?"

"Fuck no." Dave waved a hand at Justice, who made a disappointed noise at having his hopes crushed. "We're going to be just fine here. And I've even got some candy in the kitchen if you or that sister of yours want it, since you aren't going out. It was _supposed_ to be mine for the next month, but you kids deserve it more."

The boy's eyes went from wonder-filled to shining with excitement. "This is better than the time Mommy took me to the needle guy's house for candy!" In shock, all three of the adults looked between each other (or, in Terezi's case, she tried her hardest to), while Cherry started asking for where her mom was. That was the end of that discussion for the time being, and that was also when the drinks were broken out. The night was young and there were drunken encounters with confused small children to be had, after all.

Each time there was a knock at the door, Dave with his large wings and slight buzz would answer it, telling whoever was there to go away and that there wasn't any candy to be had, even if it was visible from the opening that Justice or Cherry were eating from a large bowl of sugary treats. Turning away eager kids was the best part of the night for him, and each chance he got to do it, he relished in the sad faces and occasional tears that he received for his heartbreaking news. But doing this while drinking came at a cost, and the later it got, the more crude his conversations with the kids would be. At one point, he went so far as to tell the kid at the door that he would throw up all over him to get him to leave. The parents for that child threatened to have him kicked out for it, but he replied that he "had too much money for that shit" and that it would be pointless.

After that exchange, Karkat and Terezi decided that maybe it was for the best if he stepped away from the door for a bit. So instead of hanging out with the intention of turning kids away, he was locked in the bathroom for his own good. It was while he was in there that quite possibly the best group of the night came to the door, and he wouldn't have even known they were there if it weren't for some high-pitched child screaming his name out.

He emerged from the bathroom, cursing when he nearly ripped some of the feathers off of one of his wings. "What do you want?" he bellowed, too drunk to realize that he was being so loud. In his stupor, he had figured that the kid calling for him was one of the two that were in his apartment, and when they both looked at him and pointed to the door, he realized that it was not actually either of them.

It was little Casey, dressed up in a pink princess dress with a tiara atop her head. "Uncle Da-a-a-ave," she called out, smiling as she did, because of the chorus of voices that followed hers. Right next to her, with a cardboard box and some fairy wings, was Dante, and on his other side was his sister Snow, in a mess of yellow fluff. Both of them dragged his name out further than Casey had—something he was sure they thought was cute, but he found it absolutely irritating. "We want candy please!"

"Go somewhere else." He pushed Karkat away from the door and took his rightful place back by the apartment's entrance. "We aren't giving candy out here."

Cherry happened to walk up beside him, a lollipop in her hand. She gave a small wave at Snow, who waved frantically back. "But it looks like she's got candy."

"She's also in here. You are not in here, and that means you don't get my candy. Now get lost." Dave's original sentence was going to be "get the fuck away", but that happened to be the moment that John and Jade made it down the stairs and over to the door. Both of them dressed up as scientists, they looked like they were having about as much fun as someone could walking three small children around an apartment building. "Oh, hey, look who finally decided to show up. You two too good for my parties now, huh?"

"We'll be down here later, maybe," John said, putting his hand on the top of his daughter's head. "Depends on how much of this we do tonight. It might just be an early night for us."

"We're getting a bit old for raging parties, I think." Wrapping both arms around John's body, Jade nuzzled her cheek into his shoulder. "Especially when we've got things to do tomorrow as well."

One of Dave's orange-painted eyebrows cocked up noticeably over his sunglasses that he had adorned with feathers. "What kinds of things does anyone do the day after Halloween? I mean, sure, you've gotta fucking work or something, that's cool, but it's the day to nurse wicked hangovers and all that shit."

Before either of the newcomers got to answer, a shrill voice gave him the reply that he had wanted. "They celebrate my birthday that you forget every single year, that's what they do tomorrow." Both Snow and Dante started bouncing at the sound of the voice, and soon enough the person it belonged to had arrived, but all Dave could see from his vantage point was her head. "Don't you even try to remember that that's tomorrow?"

"Eh, too drunk to care. Why are you hiding, Vriska?"

She smiled at him, allowing him to actually notice the leaves painted on her cheeks. "No reason. Just didn't want to crowd anyone, that's all." Her response was fake, and it was completely obvious to even the drunkest of Daves that something was up. "Drop the subject, please."

"I don't think so. Tell me before I look. Is it your costume? Did your dumbass man get you in some ridiculous costume you can't stand?" He knew that he had hit the jackpot when both John and Jade started laughing, but still Vriska denied anything of the sort. "Come on, tell me. I don't want to move from this spot."

It wasn't her who said something, but rather Casey in a very know-it-all sort of voice, speaking for the two younger children who weren't so skilled at proper sentences. "She's a pum'kin patch and the baby's the biggest pum'kin of all!"

As Dave started laughing hard enough to lose his breath, Vriska looked down in shame, making sure to glare in Casey's direction. "Okay, yeah, I'm hiding because of that. Worst costume idea ever, by the way. It's just a shame you don't get to see me with the 'farmer' who's in charge of me."

"This is the most hilarious thing I've heard in a long time," Dave said in between gasps for air. He found it incredibly funny and he wanted to make sure everyone knew it. His dramatic behavior grabbed the attention of almost everyone else in the apartment, save for Terezi who didn't care and wouldn't have been able to understand due to it being a visual thing. Even Rose, who had left the bedroom for a glass of wine, was compelled to see what was so funny.

Yet Vriska didn't move from where she stood, making sure that whenever someone tried to look around the corner more, she grabbed Snow and picked her up to cover her. "You can try to see all you want, but it's not anything you want to look at. Trust me."

"Pu'me down!" Snow eventually whined, right as everyone who hadn't already seen the costume was looking. "Momma please!"

With a deep sigh, Vriska did as the girl wanted, setting her back down on the floor so she could scramble back over to her brother's side. The revelation wasn't as fun to Dave as he had been expecting, but it was still funny: like Casey had explained, she was indeed dressed up like a pumpkin patch, with little pumpkins painted onto her arms, neck, and shirt. But, also like Casey had explained, the biggest pumpkin of all was painted on her bare stomach, which was swollen with the life within it. "There, now you guys get to see what kind of 'great' costume idea Tavros had for me this year."

"Of all the clever ideas that exist for dressing a pregnant woman for Halloween, I must say that this is one of the worst," Rose commented, sipping from her glass of wine before walking away. Dave didn't have the ability to speak, as he had started laughing so hard that he was drowning everyone else out after Rose's exit. To him, the entire situation was hilarious, and he wanted to let that be known.

"It's not really that funny, okay thanks." Vriska put her arms in front of her as some sort of shield, but the damage had already been done. "Besides, I'd like to see you come up with four costumes with little money. That shit's hard."

Dave took off his glasses and wiped a tear from one of his eyes. "I'll never have to worry about that, so no. Nice to see that you're willing to be as low-class as that husband of yours."

"I'm going to ignore that insult and chalk it up to you being drunk. Now let's get out of here, kids. Your daddy is waiting for us by the stairs." Giving Dave a long glare before she went, she wrangled the little fluffy sheep girl and the box-wearing boy away from the door.

"You shouldn't be so mean, not in front of their kids," Jade said, watching her friend head towards the staircase. "Or in front of Casey, for that matter. I thought you knew how to handle yourself around children."

With a shrug, Dave replied, "I'm not really sure what I know how to do when I've been drinking so much. Think she'll come back to kick my ass later?"

"She said she was going to ignore what you said, so probably not." John too was watching them leave, and once they were out of his line of sight he turned back to Dave. "You were kind of a jerk right then though. At least we had the decency to understand that making those kids into a Mareep and a truck meant more to them than giving themselves good costumes."

"Hold the fuck up, that boy was a _truck_? He had wings!"

Quietly, Casey did the explaining that only a small child could. "Dante thinks trucks are cool, but he wanted my wings. So he got my wings and I just got to be a princess." She sounded down about the situation, but her story made Dave realize that little kids were an awful lot like drunk people, because if he was trying to come up with his own costume at this point, he'd probably have picked a box and some wings as well. "Now do I get candy?"

"I said no candy." He put his glasses back on his face, smiled at his friends, and slammed the door in front of them. "Now good day!"

On the other side of the door, he heard Casey say something about how mean he was, followed by John making some comment about how that's just how Dave always was. He wanted to retort that he was drunk, and that it gave him an excuse to be a jerk, but he felt that slamming the door in their faces was enough damage for that moment. "Way to go," Karkat said, looking at Dave with a judgmental expression upon his face. "You scared them away."

"That kid kept asking for candy. I turned her away. Easy as that."

"You also laughed a bunch. What was up with that?" Terezi, her dragon mask on her face, sounded muffled but also a bit curious. "Did someone have the worst costume ever?"

Even thinking about what Vriska had been wearing brought Dave to tears once more, and he quickly explained what the big deal was. As it was something that really needed to be seen to understand the humor, Terezi didn't find it as funny as Dave had. But after a couple of hours of drinking, if she had gotten the chance to see it she would have laughed just as hard as he did.

The wonderful thing was, that exact situation happened. It was past ten when there was a knock at the front door. In a drunken stupor and having forgotten completely what night it was, Dave told whoever was there to just come on in. It never crossed his mind that he could have been inviting children that weren't related to someone present into the room, but thankfully that was not the case. Instead, it was Vriska, still in her terrible costume. "Give me something to drink," she demanded, sitting on the couch in between Karkat and Terezi, both of whom had forgone their costumes. "Doesn't matter what. Just give me something."

In the kitchen as she had relegated herself to being, Rose replied with a stumbling voice, "Can't do that, sweets. Babies and alcohol don't mix."

"I don't really fucking care. I just need a drink."

"Give her one, bitch." Dave, laying on the floor with feathers splayed everywhere, was to the point of inebriation that he was nothing more than a decoration that occasionally wanted someone to funnel drinks into his mouth. "She's here, she gets to party."

"I guess _one _glass of wine shouldn't hurt her." About a minute later, Rose stumbled into the living room, in her hands a glass filled to the rim with some variety of red wine. When it reached Vriska's hand, the drunk blonde had something to tell the recipient. "You don't get anything more than this, got it?"

Vriska nodded, taking the glass and knocking it back even though she would have preferred something not so dry and full as her only drink for the night. As she was drinking, Terezi was squinting at her and bursting into body-shaking laughter. "You're a fucking pumpkin," she said between chortles. "Big and orange and full of seed."

"Thanks for noticing." When she was done with her wine she got back up and took the glass into the kitchen, where in the span of drinking the glass Rose had already found herself again. "Hey, you, get me another."

"I said one was all you get. Sorry Vriska."

"No, you don't understand. I need another." Vriska set the glass down and put her hands on her hips to look more intimidating towards Rose. "Anything I can do to stay away from my place. If I'm drunk I can't go back."

Rose thought for a second, then grabbed one of the beers from the second case of them. "I guess you can have one of these as well. Just only one, please. I'm pretty sure that drinking while pregnant is the worst thing you can do."

"You act like I care." She snatched the beer from Rose's grasp, opened it, and drank it as fast as she could. "Besides, I read somewhere recently that it won't hurt the baby once it's mostly developed. I'm like six months along, so it all should be fine."

Rose looked hesitant in agreeing with her, but she shrugged it off. If Vriska wasn't so confident in what she had read, she wouldn't be asking for drinks, so there wasn't really any reason for her to refuse her anything else. And that was how Vriska ended up getting just as wasted as the other four adults in the apartment, eventually passing out on the couch after everyone else had gone off to do their own thing.

At around four in the morning, there was a loud round of rapid-fire knocking at the door, which woke Dave up from the slumber he had found himself in. He was in his bed, where he never remembered getting, with no clothing on whatsoever and a completely nude Rose laying next to him. He screamed in frustration, no memories of the previous night coming to him as he climbed from bed, put some pants on, and made it down the hall to the front door. On his way, he looked into the spare bedroom and saw Karkat and Terezi both asleep in the kiddie pool, with the niblings on the floor next to them. Nothing unusual.

Then he made it to the living room and saw Vriska on the couch and things started to click. She wasn't moving even in the slightest due to the noise, and that meant she was out cold. From what, he could only fear. He opened the door and was very nearly punched in the face by an absolutely furious Tavros, who stormed inside and went right over to where Vriska was. "Did you let her drink?" he asked, incredulous hints to his voice. "She smells like she spilled wine all over her."

"Real talk, I don't remember what happened." Dave's head was pounding a bit, the beginnings of his normal November first hangover setting in way earlier than normal. "Last I remember, she wasn't even here."

Tavros shook Vriska's arm a few times, trying to wake her up. She eventually stirred, very much out of it and very much still drunk. "Oh no, this isn't happening. I let her hang with you because she's still your friend, and you let her get fucked up?" Tavros was mad, as each word he said was forceful and attempted to be intimidating. Then he broke out the Spanish. "If there's even the smallest thing wrong with her or our kid, _te voy a hacer una mierda liquida_**(1)**_. _You'll wish you never fucked with me."

Since it was so early in the morning, Dave figured that the entire incident would be forgotten about when the sun rose, but that was not the case at all. Long after they were both gone and he got the sleep he needed, that evening on the day of hangovers, he was reminded of what he had been woken up for when he found a note on his front door. It was hastily written, on what looked like the back of some report, and it spelled out in clear language that, if that night's incident caused any sort of damage to Vriska or the baby, there would be hell to pay.

But judging by the way Dave regularly found her outside either smoking or drinking after that night, he figured that any damage wouldn't be his fault. He had nothing to worry about, especially when it came to dealing with someone from that family. As far as he was concerned, he was one hundred percent done with them. Early morning threats were the last straw.

* * *

**(1) "I'm gonna royally fuck you up" or, quite literally, "I'm going to make liquid shit out of you.**

**A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr on July 20th, 2014.**

**Yeah, wow, it gets dark here. And sorry to say, it gets darker in the next one, which is the last installment of the main story. Wait, what?**


	17. Act III Part V

**Act III Part V**

_Let's Not Hold Grudges_

It wasn't so much that Dave didn't really care about what Rose was telling him about people he had sworn to ignore and forget about, because listening to her long-winded stories about their misadventures was fun. It was that every time he heard her start talking about how they had done this-or-that, he started thinking back to the good days when he would be alongside them when they did all those things. And if there was one thing that Dave Strider didn't like doing, it was miss hanging out with Tavros.

For the most part, from what he could tell from Rose's stories, the guy was doing okay, even if he was still broke and a total asshole. But Dave didn't care if he was doing well, because of those threats he had received after that particular incident that wasn't even his fault. How was he supposed to be the one to blame for Vriska deciding she wanted to do some heavy drinking? He wasn't her other half. He wasn't responsible for her decisions. And so he wasn't the one who was supposed to be blamed for anything. If anyone was going to be blamed, it was going to not be him, and it should be either the person taking part in the dangerous behaviors, or the person committed to her in marriage. Not the guy who lived downstairs and pretty much hated both of them with almost all of his being.

"Dave? Are you listening to me?" Rose broke him away from his inner hatred, and he realized that he had been thinking about those two in the middle of one of her stories about them. He muttered something about how he was indeed listening, and she gave a soft tut, shaking her head. "Let me guess, something I said about them got you thinking about them again, hm?"

"Sorry, but yeah, you caught me. You talking about that smug fuck just makes me think about how much I want to move out of this place and never see him again." Rubbing his hands over his face to try and refocus himself, Dave couldn't help but remember some of the better times he had gone through with the guy—and promptly telling himself that if he thought of those happy thoughts again, he really was going to move just to leave them behind. "But okay, where were you? Black Friday, right?"

"Precisely, Dave. I was telling you about what Jade and I witnessed transpire while we were out shopping. The security guards accused them of shoplifting, Dave. It was not a pretty sight." He looked at her over the top of his sunglasses, confusion in his eyes. "Let me guess once more, you weren't paying attention to when I said I went out with Jade that day."

He nodded. "Right again."

"You just heard me mention that I had seen your most favorite person out shopping, and decided to ignore me, correct?"

"Wow, you're good at this deducing things about me. Why don't you cut the psychoanalysis crap and just get back to your storytelling?" He hadn't meant to sound so snappy, but he wasn't exactly the happiest when it came to having to hear stories that involved Tavros, Vriska, or both of them. "Faster you get through with this, faster I'll stop being sour about hearing about them."

"We both know that's not true, but whatever. You win this time, Dave." Rose laughed, a soft chuckle that unwillingly brought the smallest of smiles to Dave's face. "What's that I see? Surely not real emotion from someone as stoic as a Strider!"

He made sure to straight-line his lips once more. "No smile here. Get on with the story, my _loving_ wife."

"Sure thing." With that, she got back to talking about being out Black Friday shopping as a companion to Jade, who just had to go out to get some pricey toy for Casey as a Christmas present, and how while they were checking out, they laid witness to probably the one thing that was both funny and completely infuriating when Dave heard about it: the security guard at the entrance of the store banning the couple upstairs from ever entering the store again on grounds of shoplifting. "You know, they may be relatively poor, but they are above stealing—or, at least, one of them is. And the one that was accused of it was the one who would never do it."

"Uh huh," Dave replied, starting to fade out of paying attention as he began to think about how he would have loved to have seen this happen, just so he could laugh at their misfortune. "Because he's a wetback, yeah?"

"Technically yes, but I would have worded it in less of a racist way if I was the one saying it." Rose knew that he wasn't quite with her, so she hoped that what she was going to say next would get him back on the same page as her. "The guard stopped them because they were leaving without any bags or anything, for whatever reason, and then it got very ugly quite quickly. From where I was standing at the third register, all I could hear was the man arguing that there must have been something hidden in their jackets, which I do assume Tavros denied, but I cannot be sure. Then the guard told them to prove to him that they weren't lying, and that was when Vriska started yelling and causing a scene.

"I'm fairly certain she was overreacting, but that's what she always does, as I know you're well aware. But I can say, in her defense, that the guard did have no right to lay a hand on her, although she also had no right to attack him like she did. I swear, between her drinking and the way she keeps putting herself in physical situations, that child is going to be born either dead or deformed." That was where Rose shook her head and gave a long sigh. "And yes, I am aware that you are the one who will be in trouble if that happens. You have told me countless times about that threat."

Naturally, Dave had stopped paying attention the first time a name was mentioned of someone he didn't like, and so when the threat got brought up, he wasn't aware of the context for it. For all he knew, she was just talking about it to make sure he was listening, which he wasn't. For the couple of moments she had been talking about the guard and the couple, he had been imagining life without ever having met them. What if he hadn't decided to live in the same building as John and had chosen to live floors below his best bro Karkat? What if he just had never left Texas with his brother to begin with? What if he hadn't tried to be friends with the only racially diverse couple in the entire building to make himself look like he wasn't a racial slur-using douchebag?

"Dave?" Rose asked, much like he had done before. "Still with me?"

Now it was his time to shake his head. "Nah, and I don't think I'm going to be." He stood up, looking at Rose as she just stared at him. "Gotta go clear my head. I'll be back once I'm thinking straight again, but we both know that when I get back, you'll start yakking my ear off once more, and it's an endless cycle that I'm going to break right now."

"Don't do anything stupid while you're out there, okay? Last thing we need is for you to get arrested and for your brother to need to get involved here, because you and I both know that he will find this situation funnier than any of his puppet porn ever could be." She averted her eyes so it didn't look so much like she was staring, and that was when he went to the door and opened it. "One last thing. If you see either of them out there, just walk by, don't say anything, and whatever you do, do not approach them. I know you, and you'll just make the whole situation worse."

He waved his hand to shush her. "Don't worry, I know how it goes. Can't get myself in trouble with the law this close to hell month." After that, and the subsequent eyeroll she gave him, he was gone, headed downstairs to go outside to take a walk around the block. It was a crisp fall afternoon, and he figured that there wouldn't be too many other people outside to distract him from getting his mind off certain things.

How wrong he was. Right outside the building, her back against the bricks, a bottle of something in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, stood Vriska, obviously trying to hide the fact that she was doing two things she wasn't supposed to be doing from Tavros. She gave him a small wave with the hand that had less in it, and he gave one back, before mentally scolding himself for doing something so stupid and thoughtless. He wasn't supposed to be friendly towards her, not when her husband was out for his blood! That was why he began to run away from the situation, keeping his cool guy façade on so it seemed like he had been intending to go on a light jog the entire time, so that she wouldn't suspect a thing.

The entire time he was out there, he couldn't manage to push the mental image of what he had seen away. He would think he was finally clear of thinking about those two, and then what he had walked outside to see would come rushing back to him: the sight of someone he used to hang out with regularly, someone he knew had gone through so much in the time he had known her, using things toxic not only to herself but to the child she carried within her. It was an ugly picture, and he hated himself for not being able to let it go, but the worst thing about it all was that there wasn't anything he could do about it. Any course of action he could possibly take would get Tavros out on his tail again, and the last thing he needed was that. Things were fine the way they were.

Even if such things meant that Dave was stuck imagining that pitiful sight of Vriska for the foreseeable future.

* * *

Every single year, the holiday season was when Dave tried to spend the least amount of time around home, and this year was one where he had many reasons to do such a thing. With the amount of jobs he managed to pile upon himself every year, it was very easily done. Between his radio show, his job at the grocery store, and having to help Dirk out with the puppet porn that gave them both their money, he already had a lot on his plate, but with the holidays and other circumstances, he just kept adding more—moonlighting as the local mall Santa twice a week, and working the floor at a big-box store. Normally, there wasn't a reason for why he worked himself ragged like this for a month, but with those people upstairs that he wanted so badly to avoid, he was glad to be working so much.

The first week of December was always the easiest, even though it was the beginning of the month of nothing but work; this was because, well, it was the week where he did the least amount of work overall. The first day of the month was Jade's birthday, and he treated her and John both to a lunch where they hung out and spent time together, something that would be rare for the rest of the month, which was followed by him working the retail job that night. The third was his own birthday, as well as his brother's, and they spent that whole morning making puppet porn to Dirk's liking, just for Dave to have to play Santa that night. And then the following day was Rose and her mother's birthday, and as they were family, they got a Strider-supplied party over at Roxy's place for the early afternoon, because that was all Dave could be around for. After all, he had a radio show to do that night.

For the remainder of the month, he was lucky if he got more than just the late night hours off for himself, and that was the way he liked it. Not having to be home meant abandoning all of his responsibilities in the form of social commitments, and that meant he wouldn't have to worry about seeing anyone he didn't like. At least, that was how it worked out on paper, and that was how it went for the first twenty-one days of the month.

Come December twenty-second, the Sunday before Christmas, that whole plan went straight out the window as he was working at the retail store, managing the lines of people who had waited until almost the last minute to do their shopping for the holiday. He didn't particularly like the job he was expected to do, but being able to listen to people gripe about having to wait in line while they themselves had overflowing carts was oddly hilarious to him. People who were part of the problem while complaining about said problem were always a gem to get to witness.

He had been directing people into orderly lines, ones that wrapped most of the way through the front of the store, for hours before anything of interest happened. When it did, he was standing right by the entrance doors to see it, and when he saw the couple coming in through those sliding glass doors, he let out a groan. Why, of all the stores in town, were they at the one he worked at each holiday season? Then he remembered that story Rose had tried to tell him about Black Friday, and since this store was the only one around even comparable to that one, it was a natural choice that they'd come to this place rather than go to the place they'd been banned from.

They grabbed a cart and he began to stealthily follow them through the store, only stopping when a call for a floor associate to go to an aisle on the other side of the place, to clean up a bodily fluid mess, was made, and he was the one expected to go. Having to clean up some sick person's vomit mess wasn't enough to take his mind off of those two, though, and once he was done and everything was thoroughly sanitized, he went back to trying to find where they were in the store, and what they were doing.

As he watched them throw more and more into their cart, he couldn't help but think about how they were able to afford so much stuff, when they had so many other things to be paying for. Two kids, plus a third on the way, and everything else that life had handed them, didn't ever leave them with spending money, a fact that Dave knew all too well. Hadn't he wanted to be able to pay for things for them so many times before, just to not be allowed to due to that stupid contract him and Dirk had? Well, now he wasn't going to volunteer his money for the sake of their family, and he was able to think negatively about them and their spending habits.

Of course, his stalking of them had to meet its end at some point, and that was when the manager on duty, a bulky man who towered over Dave, caught him in the act and ordered for him to get back up to the front of the store, where he was supposed to be. When unrestrained by a worker, the public didn't seem to know how to make orderly lines, and that meant that Dave needed to get back to doing his job. And so he went, going back to the mundane and boring job of telling people that they were cutting in line if they started up where they were, and that they needed to go to the end of the line to begin their checkout experience. People complained, he had to put on a straight face, and no one was happy.

Even less people were happy later, over an hour and a half since the mess clean up in aisle sixteen, when the lines were even longer and the people just kept coming into the store. Dave was about at the end of his rope, having just had to tell people who didn't speak English or anything close to it that they weren't allowed to just jump to the open checkout, because there was a line to wait in, when he saw out of the corner of his eye a cart that he had watched been filled. He turned and saw that yes, it was indeed Tavros and Vriska, waiting their turn in line, with a cart nearly overflowing with things they were going to give their kids as gifts that year.

He shouldn't have said anything. He should have just looked away and gone back to telling people they were in the wrong spot. But something inside of Dave told him that he needed a break from work, that he needed to cause some trouble. And that was when he walked over to the couple and put a hand on their cart. "'Sup?" he asked, getting their attention. "We don't serve people like you here."

"Oh, uh, it's you." There was disgust in his voice, and Tavros made sure to not look at Dave as he continued to speak. "I don't appreciate that comment, and I'd like to speak to your manager about this."

"Sorry, manager doesn't talk to people who are going to just have to leave because they can't pay for their shit." Dave had a smug grin on his face, hoping that he was striking a nerve in the tanned guy he was talking to, which he apparently was by the way Tavros was looking anywhere but at him. "What's the matter? Got nothing to say to me?"

He sputtered for a second, just letting Dave make that grin even bigger, before spitting out what he did have to say. "I could think of all the words I know in the two languages I speak, and there's not a single phrase I could use that would tell you how much I dislike you." Coming from someone as normally mild-mannered as Tavros, it was something to behold, but the moment to behold it was ruined by Vriska whining about something or other, whatever it was not being nearly important enough for Dave to pay attention to it. "Please go away, leave us alone, and all that."

"No can do. You're in my store now, and you know what people do in my store? They get their daily dose of Strider." Dave picked up one of the toys in the car, a little cloth doll, and threw it to the floor. "Whoops, sorry about that. Bet Snow just loves dirty toys though, yeah? It's all you two can afford."

"Pick it up, Dave." The words had force behind them, but that force was diminished when Tavros didn't add anything else to it to make it seem like he had more fight in himself. Dave laughed and he narrowed his eyes, finally making eye contact with the Strider—but once again, Vriska's whines, which Dave still was ignoring, ruined the moment. "No, not now. We put this off until today. You said today was the best day for shopping."

"No, I know I said that, but it's not. I thought we'd get lucky out here, but we aren't going to, so can we please go? Something's very wrong." The words were said softly, much like Vriska used to speak right after the whole thing that had happened to her on the stairs had gone down, but they were said with such a tone that she sounded like she was trying not to cry. "You can get all this later, can't you?"

"I can, but—" Tavros got cut off by Dave, who started snickering. "—okay that's it buddy, we are going to have a problem here if you don't stop. I asked you to go, you said no, and I respected that, but laughing when my sweet Vriska is having some sort of problem? That's where I draw the line."

Dave's snickers turned into real laughs. "Uh huh, like you've ever stopped me before. You threaten and threaten and you've got no force behind anything you say. You're just a poor wimp with braces on his legs who can't do anything worth a damn."

"Take that back. I have more of a life than you do, and that means something to me. You're jealous of what I have and we both know that. So what if you have money? I have a family to love that loves me. What do you have? A wife you never wanted?" Stepping away from the cart just a bit, Tavros actually made the move to grab Dave's arm and pull him away as well. "I want you to apologize for what you've done today. You had no need to come bother us."

"Like I said, you came to my place, and I like giving everyone their dose of Strider." His arm was squeezed tightly, and that was when Dave realized that Tavros wasn't playing around at this moment. If anything, he was more serious and mean now than he had ever been around Dave, and that was including the incident that led to the death threat letter. "Okay, okay, geeze, looks like someone's got no sense of humor."

"More like, I don't have a sense of tolerance when it comes to the racist asshole who fueled the love of my life's addiction to things that could have killed her." Tavros stepped back to Vriska's side, letting go of Dave's arm as he did. "But what does her life mean to you? Or what does our baby's life mean? Nothing, of course, because you're all about you. Everything is all about Dave Strider, and not about anyone else."

Rubbing at his arm where it had been squeezed, it dawned on Dave that maybe Tavros was right about that. He didn't really care about others most of the time, just when he felt they needed him, and when had he felt that Vriska needed his help while she was spiraling into the alcohol-addicted woman that was before him? He hadn't, that was what, and if he had, maybe he wouldn't have just let he suffer. "Okay, so maybe I'm a dick. Congrats, pretty sure everyone knows that. Do you think attacking me while I'm at work will change that?"

"No, nothing will change how you are. You've been a dick since we met, and I'll still hold you responsible if anything goes wrong." There was a trace of a smile on Tavros' face, one that Dave noticed and used to realize that this guy here, he wasn't capable of holding a grudge worth anything. He just wanted to seem like he was protecting the ones he loved, and that was it. Even after the terrible things Dave had said, there was still some sort of attachment that this guy had towards him, and that had stopped there from being a bigger ordeal than the little argument that had happened right there.

Maybe patching up things wouldn't have been such a bad idea, and with that in mind, Dave bent over to pick that doll up from on the floor. But while he was looking down to get it, he noticed a red splotch on the floor, between a pair of legs, and, while lifting the doll up and putting it back into the cart, his eyes tracked to see if he could find where the blood was coming from, hoping that it was just a cut on someone's hand or something.

The usually stoic Dave Strider actually screamed when he saw that the source was obscured by the crotch of Vriska's pants, which were soaked in the red. "Holy shit, what's wrong with you?" he asked, shocked at what he was seeing. "Thought pregnant women didn't do that kind of thing!"

"I said something was wrong, didn't I?" she snapped, her voice wavering as she did. "But you two had to just keep going on with your fight and ignored that I warned about this!" As she spoke and the wavering got worse, Tavros started to panic, obvious in the way he started to shake and look around frantically. It only got worse when she nearly fell over, catching herself on the cart, and he about fell with her. "God damn it, we need to go. Just…we'll have to leave this. Sucks, but I think I'm dying or something."

Even in such a situation, she still had a small sense of humor, and that made the fact that they didn't know what was happening, and that she very well could have been dying, a little less serious. "Dave, I'm sorry to have to do this to you on such a busy day, but could you maybe hide this cart for me? I'd rather not have to find everything all over again when I get to come back." Now Tavros was having a shaky voice, as he righted Vriska and tried to get her headed towards the door. "If you could just help me out, after everything…"

"Don't worry about it, dude. I'll take care of things for you." Dave gave a thumbs up, called for someone to come clean up the mess, citing that he had been the one who was forced into cleaning up the vomit mess so that he didn't have to clean the blood, and tried to come up with a solution to the problem. After all, he had told Tavros he'd take care of things, hadn't he?

But was it wrong for him to keep standing in line in place of someone else? Of course it was. He was supposed to tell people that kind of activity wasn't allowed. Adding in the fact that he was on the clock and could be punished for what he was trying to do, and everything about this entire situation had the potential to get very, very ugly as quickly as it already had gotten bad. But what was he supposed to do here? His job?

There was a fine line in Dave's morality, and he knew that not putting away the cart full of toys and gifts was the right option from where he was standing, based on the fact that, as far as he knew, the only reason the emergency that had just transpired had happened was because Vriska had been waiting in this very same line and something with standing up just didn't agree with her. By putting everything back, he was just rubbing it in that something had gone wrong, and he would be punishing them for what had happened.

"Strider, what are you doing?" He was steps from being able to start putting items on the conveyor belt, and the sound of his boss' voice sent shivers down his back. "Aren't you on the clock?"

"Sure am, sir," he replied, not looking at the big man he knew was right behind him.

"You know the rules. No purchases while on the clock." The cart started to move, as the man was beginning to pull it towards himself. "Now go put these th—are these children's toys?"

Dave nodded, as he pulled the cart back to where it had been. "Yep, looks like it."

"Go put these away, Strider. You aren't being paid to waste your time doing some shopping."

Shaking his head this time, Dave stepped just a bit closer to the register, where enough room had opened up on the conveyor belt so that he could start putting a couple things on it. "Can't do that, sir. This is more important."

"More important? Listen, I get it, you've got friends who've got kids, and you want to do the Santa thing. But this isn't the time or the place for this nonsense, so put these things away so that loyal and paying customers can buy them!" By now, a few other people in line had noticed what was happening, and they were watching intently, waiting to see what other acts of defiance Dave was going to perform. The first one, naturally, was to pull more things from the cart and put them with the others. "Strider! Are you disobeying the man who signs your checks?"

He looked from the cart, which was still mostly full of toys, to what he had already put on the belt, and turned to look up and into the boss' face. "Sure am, sir," he said once more. "Sorry to burst your bubble."

The man's face began to turn red in anger, as he began to let loose on this disobedient worker of his. "Strider, you are this," he held up a hand, with two fingers impossibly close to one another, "close to getting fired. Do not pass go. Do not collect any money. I will burn your checks and every good recommendation I would ever give you if you keep this up."

"Sorry, but not really. Weren't you watching when the people who filled this cart had to leave because one of them started bleeding all over the floor?" Dave wasn't one to show his anger in his face like his boss was, but he certainly was mad, shaking where he stood. "Do you expect me to just ignore the fact that they were here for almost two hours, half of that being spent in line for this stuff?" He motioned to the cart and everything within it. "And do you expect me to ignore the fact that the guy fucking asked me to take care of this stuff for him, so that he could get it when he came back?"

"I'll let that profanity slide this time, Strider, but what I won't let slide is your ignorance for company policy!" The man grabbed the cart and pulled it towards himself once more, but Dave was there, grabbing it again to stop him. "That gentleman, whether he was your brother or a random man, does not get to use you to bypass this line, nor does he get preferential treatment just because you felt pity for him! Put these things back, and he can do like everyone else and get them once more when he returns!"'

"No, I'm not doing it. I know I'm a douche, a huge dick, and a terrible person. I know I've done many things wrong in my life, but you know what else I know? I know that not buying this stuff for them would be the worst thing I could do! And you know what that's on top of?" It was too late to stop Dave from continuing on, and he was too angered to care that he was sealing his fate with every word. "I used to be best friends with that guy. His name's Tavros. Real quality guy. And I fucked things up with him. Called him some racist things. Ruined what we had between us. And instead of being a man and apologizing for it, I just acted like it never happened, and that led to me being partially responsible for his wife becoming a raging alcoholic. And do you know what _that_ led to?

"It led to death threats, to me being a total dickhead to them, and to what happened here today, I'm pretty sure." He started to slam the cart into his boss' stomach, making the big man angrier. "Look at this stuff. Fucking look at it! That couple, they've got these two kids that won't be getting a Christmas if they don't get these things. I can't take back all the shit I've said and done in the past, but you know what I can do? I can make sure that those kids get the gifts they deserve." He turned around and started putting things back on the conveyor belt, as everyone around him just looked in his direction in awe. But he wasn't finished speaking, as he had one last thing to say: "I'm doing the right thing here. For Tavros, and for Vriska, and for their kids. And if you have a problem with that, well, fuck you! I may be a douche, but god damn it, I'm David Strider, and I am not going to let being a douche ruin someone's Christmas!"

The man tried to speak, but a loud round of applause, from the witnesses of what had just happened, drowned him out for a minute or so. Once the clapping died down, he put a hand on Dave's shoulder, grasping it tightly. "Good for you, standing up for what you believe in. However, the workplace is no place for this behavior, and you and I will have a nice, long chat about this once you are finished here. I can assure you, this store will no longer need your services." Replacing the applause from before was a loud roaring boo, as everyone had heard the boss' final judgment, and Dave paled more than normal, realizing that he had been fired from a job for the first time.

Ultimately, though, Dave got to do what he felt was the right thing overall, and after spending over three hundred dollars on the contents of that cart (he first wondered how Tavros would have managed to pay for it, then stopped himself and just thought about how he was going to let the guy use that money some other way), plus taking that trip to the manager's office to have the "death sentence" handed down to him, he was out of that place. What good was working a job that put money before people, anyway?

People were always going to be more important.

* * *

Getting back to the apartment building with his car full of bags that held presents that weren't his, the first order of business Dave had was to get those gifts in the apartment they belonged in. The problem there was, he didn't have a key to get in, and he was pretty sure the only people who had one were the ones he was doing this for. So he moved that goal to second on the list, and headed up to the fifth floor of the building, where the other apartment he needed to stop in was located. Seeing the surprised looks on both John and Jade's faces when he came in was enough to make him question why they would be so shocked that he was there, and then he heard the screaming that _was_ the reason.

"Uncle Dave!" Casey's voice was the first one he picked out, because she was the one who was able to say both words clearly and properly, but he could hear Snow and Dante both trying to make sense of the words too. "Hi!"

"Yeah, hey there kiddo," he said with a wave, before blocking the kids out completely and focusing on the adults who were present. "We've got a problem."

"Is the problem that you're not at work?" John asked, laughing as he did, but the serious look that Dave had on his face was enough to get him to stop. "Guess not. What's the matter, if it's not that?"

Dave looked over at the kids, all of whom were sitting on the couch, then back to the adults. "I'd rather not say it with them listening. It's a bit, uh, rough." At that, Jade told all three of the kids to go into Casey's room to play, and there was only a little arguing about how that wasn't fair before they went. Once the door was securely shut, he felt like he could talk. "So, okay, Tavros and Vriska came into the store today. And while I think we made up, maybe, I don't know if it even really matters because she's dying. Or something like that. There was a lot of blood."

Jade's eyes widened, while John scrambled for his phone to send a message off in their direction, to see what was happening. "Blood? But…why?" As Jade tried to think of what could possibly have been the cause, not wanting to even dare suggest the thing that was on all of their minds, John got the confirmation through a message, wordlessly passing the phone to his wife, who nodded quietly and handed it off to Dave. What he saw on the phone wasn't anything he didn't suspect, but it was something he hadn't wanted to consider. All of those destructive behaviors he had witnessed over the past couple of months, the ones he had allowed in the first place at his Halloween party, had come back to bite Vriska hard.

"Do you think we'll be able to go see her?" he managed to ask, handing the phone back to John, who shrugged. "Damn. I really think I need to apologize to her for this one."

"Dave, don't do this. You aren't to blame for this." Jade was still shaking her head, looking between the guys as she did. "I tried to talk her out of what she was doing, and it didn't work. She was going to drink and smoke and try to kill that poor baby, regardless of what any of us did."

"You don't understand though!" Hitting the wall with his hand wasn't the smartest of ideas, but it was what Dave did. "I let her drink at that party! She became a drunk because of me!" He hit the wall again, and again, and again, until he slumped up against it, tears actually welling up in his eyes. "She's actually dying and there's no one to blame for it but me."

John was still on his phone, trying to get more details, but he wasn't getting much to help convince Dave otherwise. "Hey, don't get down on yourself. Jade's right, she tried to stop Vriska, and so did I. There wasn't anything any of us could have done to make this situation better, and she's probably not dying. Things will be better tomorrow, I'm sure."

Despite the optimism, there wasn't much that could have gotten better. When the next day came, Dave woke to the notification light on his phone going off, several missed messages from different sources waiting for him to read them. The first one was from his brother, stating that he was in big trouble for spending so much money the day before, which he promptly deleted. Why worry about that dumb situation, especially when there was a pile of toys in the kiddie pool room that he had bought with that money he was supposed to use on himself? The second message was from John, a reassuring message that said that he had heard from the couple and that things were slightly, just slightly, better from the day before, and that he was only sending the word because he was sure that neither of them would have his number anymore.

The last two messages were from the same source, a number that Dave had never actually bothered to delete, even when he had hated the guy with all his being. It was an invitation to come and see them, just for him, to thank him for his presence at the store the day before, even though it hadn't been a happy time. On top of that, it was a message that assured him that everyone was okay, and that no one was dying—even though, for the time being, there was no way of knowing if the tiny little baby the world wasn't quite ready for was going to be able to live up to his namesakes and thrive.

* * *

Due to the circumstances around his birth, Rufio was always a bit special, especially in comparison with both of his older siblings. While Snow was always for playing her video games and Dante was always wanting to hear stories, there wasn't much of anything that the youngest of the three particularly liked.

His sister would clamor for time to sit in her mom's lap and play Pokémon with her. His brother would whine and whine until someone would read to him. And Rufio would just lay there, not wanting to be around either parent or either sibling, just wanting to be with himself and his own thoughts, but whenever his parents would check up on him, he would be staring at them, his eyes crossed and a big smile on his face. He loved being with them together, never separate, and it made for interesting times when they'd be working and unable to both be with him.

When he had been born, everyone had thought he'd be unable to function properly, because of how wrong everything had gone for him; they were all wrong, even if he wasn't exactly like his siblings were. He grew up needing someone there to hold his hand through everything, someone to give him an extra push when it came to doing almost anything on his own. His first steps were more shaky than the typical child's, his legs literally contorting themselves in weird ways from underneath him. The first time he spoke, his parents cried, because they had never thought that this precious child would say anything, as he waited until he was nearly three years old to speak that once.

And the first time he took a crayon in his left hand and drew a dinosaur on the wall, while it was a terrible thing to have to clean up, was a momentous occasion. Sure, this kid was still shaky when he walked, he barely ever said anything, and he always needed help putting his clothes on in the morning, but he could draw something and be proud of it. Snow complained that letting him draw on the walls was a terrible idea, and Dante was quick to talk about something he'd read that said that walls of apartments were meant to be bare, but they would quickly be hushed in favor of letting their special needs younger brother have his moment.

Much like Snow was her parents' favorite, and Dante was John and Jade's, someone had found the power to claim Rufio as their favorite—and every time he saw Dave, he made sure to plant a big kiss on his cheek and show him the newest picture of a dinosaur he'd drawn. Being accepted by this kid meant something to Dave, who had resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't going to have kids and that was okay, because this kid was all him and Rose needed in their lives, even if their lives really would have been better if they hadn't gotten married in the first place.

The way things turned out for everyone was the best it was going to be, and there was no arguing against it. Every little thing, from the first time Vriska played Pokémon, to when the Egberts went to Disneyland, to all the fighting that had happened between Tavros and Dave, was meant to be exactly as it was. And for Dave, seeing that little red-haired, cross-eyed kid every time he went to hang out with his once-again best friend, that made everything worth it.

* * *

**A/N: Originally published to Tumblr on December 22nd, 2014.**

**And there we have it. The last chapter of Dave's part of the story. The last written chapter to the Let's Live Life saga. But just because it's last written doesn't mean it's the end of the line. I still have a fair number of extra bits that connect in the timeline here and there, and they'll be posted as the weeks go on. c:**


	18. Act III Part VI

**Act III Part VI**

_Let's Not Be Responsible Adults_

It was Dave's twenty-first birthday, and he wanted to party in style. Or, at least, that's what he told everyone he invited to his party—even though they all knew he was well over twenty-one years of age. This wasn't even his first "twenty-first birthday", as he had claimed his last five birthdays were all that same one. But the second part of the statement was true, and he did indeed want to party in style.

Mostly nude laser tag was definitely his style. It would have been completely nude, but the workers who were running the place said that if they saw any bits that should be covered, they would all be kicked out. Running around in nothing but bras and underwear, however, was totally cool and allowed. And so that's exactly what Dave required of his friends: they had to strip down to minimal clothing and play laser tag that way, their bare skin up against the cold air in the playing area, for everyone to see.

When they were all gathered at the place where this fun would be happening, the question everyone was asking was _not_ "hey, can we wear clothes?" because everyone (aside from one person who swore she was stripped down as much as she could be on account of her bra being attached to her tanktop) was complying with the rules. Instead, it was "hey, who are those people?" and followed with a point at two scraggly-haired men who looked like they hadn't showered in weeks.

"Them?" Dave always said in reply, a shocked look on his face. "Oh, they're just friends I met on the street corner. Really nice guys. They always give me rats in exchange for cigs."

Since this was Dave they were dealing with, no one argued with him, except for Jade, who, along with her tanktop, was not really happy with the whole situation. "You invited bums to your party? What's next? Little kids are going to show up?" He scoffed at that, saying that his "friends" were not bums, but down-on-their-luck guys who didn't really have any clue how to get their luck back. "No, they're bums. I've seen them with their signs and sad faces. I'm not playing with them."

"You're such a spoilsport, Jade. Come on. One round with them. That's all I paid for for those two, anyway." She agreed to that, albeit a bit begrudgingly, because she didn't want to have wasted the money to pay for a round of laser tag she wasn't going to play.

That one round went by faster than anyone could have expected, and was overall a lot of fun, but when they exited the arena and the bums left, Dave noticed that the building seemed to be filled with preteens. "Oh. Wonderful. We're gonna get to play with some kids," he said, cracking his knuckles and shooting Jade what could only be described as an ugly look. "They can't be too hard to beat."

"The only reason your team won last game is because my team had three less-than-great players," Vriska commented, rolling her eyes. "You had your street urchin friends and John and Karkat. I had Jade and Tavros and Terezi, and I'm the only one of us who's actually good."

"What's that supposed to mean, Vriska?" Terezi shot back, elbowing the blond in the side. "Just because I kind of can't see right now doesn't mean I'm not good."

The response she got was an equally forceful elbow in her side. "You kept trying to shoot me. You're terrible. And then we had Jade who stood in one place and didn't shoot anyone, and Tavros, who at least tried. It's not his fault he's not the fastest."

"Wow, Vriska, way to throw your team under the bus." John high-fived Karkat for saying that, but he wasn't done. "Now apologize to all of them, because I think Dave's about to do something boneheaded."

"Okay, whatever. Sorry, team." She waved off her words, earning her an icy glare from Karkat. "What? If you're gonna say they're hurt by it, you don't know me or them. Terezi took this kind of shit from me back in school."

Before he could say anything back, Dave grabbed a hat from the table that was holding all of the things for his party, put it on his head, and grinned. "Us versus all of those kids. Easy, right? We'll take them down like it's nothing."

"Are you crazy? We're all half dressed!" Jade whined, looking like she was about to punch a certain Strider in the face. "Those kids' parents will get mad if they know they're playing with us!"

"If that's the only problem you have, which, by the way, I've taken care of already, then this should be great. Game starts in five." With that, he disappeared off into the arcade area of the building, leaving all of his friends standing awkwardly in nothing more than their underwear amongst the preteens.

One such kid, noticing the group of adults, pushed his way into the middle of everyone. "Excuse me," he asked, tugging at Jade's shirt, "can you take this off so we can see your tits? We can see those other ladies', but yours look bigger than theirs."

"Ew, no! Get away from me, you brat!" she shrieked, pushing the kid away and swatting at him until he backed off, returning moments later in tears with what seemed to be his father, who kindly asked Jade to not harass his son. "But he wanted me to take my shirt off! I'm not going to stand for that!"

"Then you better stand for losing," that father replied, "because there is no way in the world you're going to survive this game. My son's a laser tag pro."

John inserted himself into the conversation then, looking that man straight in the eyes and calmly saying, "Back off from my wife before we get into a fight right here. She doesn't need to be treated like this by anyone."

"Says the guy who's wearing nothing but boxers. Classy."

A fight would have erupted right then if it wasn't for Dave coming back with tickets wrapped around his body and draped over his shoulders, effectively distracting everyone. "I think I got enough for the Xbox, guys." The absurdity of his behavior caused everyone, including the outraged father, to laugh, calming the tension long enough for the round to laser tag to begin without a hitch.

One team ended up creaming the other.

It was not the team of seven adults that ended up being victorious.

Kids ended up being chased out of the building by Dave, wielding his laser tag gun like a real weapon, screaming at them about "unfairly fucking up his birthday party" and "stealing his tickets" and other nonsense things.

All of his guests agreed that that was the best part of the entire party.

* * *

**A/N: Originally posted to Tumblr December 2012.**

**This was the first of Dave's stories written, and man it brings back memories to look at this. c:**


	19. Act I Part VI

**Act I Part VI**

_Let's (Not) Play Adventure_

"Would you be okay if I ordered a pizza?" Tavros asked, setting down his Gameboy on his lap and looking at Vriska, who was sitting next to him, watching the TV intently. "I'm pretty sure you're too involved in that show to care, but..."

"Order one." Without so much as looking away, she answered him. "And get it with the blood of children and the tears of our enemies on top. I'm feeling kind of adventurous tonight." He sighed, she cracked a smile, but her attention did not leave the cop show that she was watching. It wasn't like he didn't have her normal pizza order memorized anyway.

One call to the closest pizza shop that delivered later and they were both back to doing their own things, while waiting for the door to be knocked on and salvation in the form of a cheesy mess to be brought into their lives. Tavros got immersed once more into his Pokémon game, and so he didn't realize just how much time had passed until he looked at the clock and noticed over an hour had gone by and they were still pizza-less. "Did you hear any knocks?" He stood up, turning his game off to investigate. "Did we just ignore the guy coming?"

"I don't know, probably not though. Call them back, bitch at them, something. I've seen two episodes of this damn show since you called and I'm not eating pizza, so there's something wrong." She was as helpful as always, a trait that was both annoying yet oddly charming in Tavros' eyes. "You gonna go downstairs and look?"

"I think so, yeah," he replied, leaving their bedroom and heading towards the front door. When he opened it, he screamed, not due to anyone on the other side but rather because Vriska had decided to finally stop watching her show and come join him. "We're gonna do this together. Okay. Cool."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm hungry, my pizza's not here, and you're being a puss by not just calling and bitching."

"Maybe the guy died."

"Maybe you need to grow a pair and stand up for our missing food."

Together they left the apartment, heading down the first flight of stairs to the second-floor landing. One of the apartment doors on the floor was open, and loud music could be heard from inside of it, along with laughter and the sounds of a rather good time. "Wish we knew people in this damn building," she said under her breath, as they walked to the next staircase. "We'd be hanging out with friends right now if we did."

"We would also probably be eating pizza." She looked at him with narrowed eyes and he grinned, before his stomach growled and ruined the moment. They made it down to the ground floor, with no sign of any sort of trouble for their meal and its deliverer. As they went back up the stairs, he sighed and rubbed at his stomach, which was growling again. "Do you think that party would be willing to share whatever food they've got? I bet they have something we could snack on..."

"You sound so bummed out that you're not stuffing your face with pizza right now. Come on, Tavros, there's more to life than video games and pizza. I think we should walk into that party right now and make them accept us and give us some food so we don't have to cook." She puffed her chest out, pulled him up the rest of the stairs to the second floor, marched to the door that was slightly ajar, and pushed it open, causing it to slam.

The three people in the apartment all just stared at them, and they stared back. One of the three, a blond guy who was standing up with some alcoholic drink in his hand, approached them, a suspicious smile on his face. "Who the fuck are you?" he asked, his voice attempting to be intimidating while he looked inviting. "And why the fuck are you in my apartment without my permission?"

"My name's Vriska Serket, and this guy here is my boyfriend Tavros, and we're hungry as fuck, so give us..." Her voice trailed off as she caught the scent of something in the room. Tavros had also noticed the smell and had pulled his hand out of Vriska's grasp to find where it was coming from. "Do you have a pizza in here?"

"A cheese and pepperoni one, yeah. None of us ordered it, but the guy insisted that this is the place he was told to bring it, so I decided to do someone a solid and pay for it for them." The guy shrugged, before taking a swig of his drink. "I'm a pretty swell guy, aren't I?"

From the kitchen, Tavros could be heard exclaiming that there indeed was a pizza, one with their apartment number on it, and Vriska crossed her arms at the guy. "Swell, yes, but that's rightfully our pizza and I think we're just going to take it, thanks."

"Eh, no problem. We didn't need it anyway."

Tavros grabbed it and headed towards the door with the prize in hand, but stopped mere inches from salvation and turned to look at the man. "Don't you want us to, well, pay for it? Since you did pay for it originally and it is ours..."

"Nah. I'll come up with a way to make you pay eventually." He laughed, causing Tavros to laugh awkwardly in return while Vriska just rolled her eyes and asked where to put the money they owed him. "No, but seriously, you don't need to pay. Pizzas for all the upstairs floors get dropped off here for some fucking reason, and I pay for them all the time. It's just what I do."

"Well thank you then, mister 'nice guy'," Vriska sarcastically said, flipping her hair dramatically and walking out the apartment. Tavros straggled behind a bit, not completely sure if he should really leave without reimbursing the man for what he did.

It was noticed by the man and his friends, who by then were also to their feet and Tavros recognized them as the people who had approached him and Vriska weeks before when they had first moved in. "You're new here, aren't you?" the blond man asked, to which Tavros nervously nodded. "We can tell. You don't need to be afraid of us. We're probably the coolest people in this whole building, and you can trust us."

"Thanks for getting my piz—"

"This isn't just about the pizza, dude." The guy played with the sunglasses that were covering his eyes, something odd that Tavros hadn't really noticed until right then. "You seem pretty chill, just a bit bossed around by a high-strung girlfriend. And we get that. You and her should hang with us sometime. Drink a few beers, tell a few stories, make friends for life."

"I don't know if she'll appreciate that..." Tavros sighed, as his stomach growled again. "But I should really get going, I need to eat."

The three people all smiled at him. "Well, in case you ever want to take me up on my offer, my name's Dave." He then pointed at the two people he was with. "And these are John and Jade. They actually told me about you and your girlfriend, and said that you might be someone we could befriend. Seems like they were right."

"Tavros, what the fuck are you doing still?" Vriska's shrill voice asked, and she appeared once more in front of the doorway, her eyes opening wide in shock when she saw the three people surrounding her boyfriend. "Are they harassing you? Do I need to call the cops?"

"No, they're not." He thanked Dave again for covering the bill on the pizza, before leaving the apartment. "I think I just made friends, Vriska."

"Oh, great, friends for you to go hang out with while I get left behind at home. Do I look like a fucking housewife to you? I want to go out too!" She snagged the pizza from his hands and opened the box, making sure all the pieces were there. "Hey, that asshole left our stuff intact."

He smiled, looking back at the door that had been returned to its slightly ajar state. "That asshole's name is Dave, and I think he's going to become a real good friend of ours." While it was true, and they did become great friends, there was the matter that there was still a debt to be paid, not just from the one incident but the hundreds more that occurred over the years, from whenever Tavros or Vriska ordered something for delivery, which would end up at the door of one Dave Strider, who paid his friend's bills under the unspoken agreement that they put up with all of his antics...

* * *

**A/N: And now we go back to the Let's Play saga of the fic for the foreseeable future. c:**


End file.
